Till The Death
by Hawk Clowd
Summary: One of the Gundam pilots has died and the selfacclaimed God of Death is not taking it well. Between that, his nightmares, and his lookalike roomate, he's having a hell of a time. Yaoi3x4, 1x2 implications Incomplete
1. Chapter One

**Part One:**

"And so we lay to rest our beloved friend..."

The priest was talking again.  Blah blah blah, he was such a special person.  Blah blah blah, we'll all miss him.  Blah blah.  I could remember a time when I had pictured myself in that outfit, in that role.  That was long ago, and those days were as dead as the friend we were sticking in the ground.  The friend we had lost.

That damn priest.  He thought he had the right to speak of my friend like that, with the disgusting smirk on his face.  People, citizens here, had all come just to watch as the casket was put down, and to smile and wonder how long it would be before the rest of us joined him.  Only a year had passed, and they had already forgotten that we had risked out lives to save them.  We were Gundam pilots.  To them, we would always be the symbol of war.  To them, we would always be the enemy.  We were to die.

And that man, that boy, being put into the ground, that was my friend.  My friend.  Those were words neither of us would ever have said out loud, but yes, we had been friends. Hell, we had been more than friends.  We had both known it.  What right had the other people, the 'citizens,' to attend the funeral of my best friend and to scorn him?  A dead man can't retaliate. 

"Amen."  The priest again.  He was worse than the 'citizens.'  

"Amen," I answered softly, bitterly, crossing myself.  Wufei looked over at me.  Wufei.  He had changed over the past few weeks, since that last mission.  Sure, he was still ranting about justice and being weak and all, but he was a better person now.  Nicer, maybe, more tolerant.  It was hard to pinpoint the change exactly, but it was there, and he was slowly becoming a friend.

"Are you alright?  No one will call you weak if you wish to leave," he told me.  I smiled weakly and shook my head.  I had dragged everyone here to begin with.  And I was going to see it through.  Besides, the 'citizens' were like vultures, and by leaving they would be free to prey on the flesh of the dead, and of the living.  We were the symbols of war, after all.  We couldn't possibly have _feelings_.  And I couldn't allow that.  No, I couldn't allow that at all.

But then they put the casket in the ground.  And it was the dull thud of the coffin meeting earth that really got me.  All of a sudden I felt very sick.  I turned and walked a bit away, gesticulating for Wufei and the others to remain where they were.  The three of them, Wufei, Quatre, and even Trowa, all threw worried glances my way.  I was acting a bit unusual, for me, I guess.  I walked a bit more, a bit further, before I was out of sight and my legs all of a sudden got really weak.  I sank to the dank ground in a sitting position, hugging my knees to my chest, and leaned my back up against a tombstone.  I was well aware that, six feet below me, were the rotted and decomposing remains of some stranger, who had probably once had a best friend.  And maybe this best friend had acted like a best friend and stayed for the whole funeral.  I had spent a lot of time in graveyards as a kid, and I ignored the stench of grave dirt that found it's way to my nose.  I lay my head on my folded up knees and, forgetting any comments Wufei would have made about my being weak, I began to cry.  I sobbed like a beaten child, finally dragging myself into the unconscious state of sleep.

I don't know when I woke up, but it must have been a good while later, because the sun was beginning to set.  The sky was stained a bloody red, with dark streaks of blue shining through.  I sat up, ignoring the stiff crick in my neck, and stretched.  With luck, my friends would still be here, in the church parking lot, probably.  I'd find them soon enough, but I first wanted to see the grave.  All the 'citizens' had dispersed, thank God, and the grave marker had been set up.  A brand new, freshly carved gravestone.  I approached it slowly, with some caution, gingerly stepping over the newly covered grave.  I knew from previous experience that the ground was still extremely soft, and that a wrong step could get you stuck up to your knees in grave dirt.  We used to play a game with that on L2, daring other kids to step over the graves.  We always promised that we would pull them out if they got stuck, but no one was ever foolish enough to try.

Except me, of course.  And as I stared down at the place my friend was buried, I kept thinking of that time I had been stepping on the graves and got stuck in a brand new one, up to my middle at least.  And I remember screaming, as loud as I could, for the others to get me out, but no one came.  I stayed there for an hour or two before one of the priests in the church heard me and ran out to fetch me. I swallowed hard, remembering the way the grave smell had become overpowering, and by the time I was out I had been thinking so much about death and dying that I wasn't scared of it anymore, and said I was the ruler of death.  That, I think, is when I first came up with the idea of calling myself Shinigami.  But I looked down at the fresh gravestone again, and realized that if I really was Shinigami, I would have been able to save him.  My best friend.

I pushed the thought away and kneeled by the grave, lightly touching it with my fingers.  Some idiot had already scrawled profanity on the back of it, despite it's newness and the respect the occupant deserved.  I rubbed at it with my sleeve, remembering a book I had read once, about a guy who was always rubbing out profanity asking what happened to the ducks in the winter.  It had been a really battered book, a classic of some sort, and I had enjoyed it, actually, up to a point.  It was by some guy named Salinger. Catcher in the Rye, maybe?  I smiled a little.  What I would give to see the guy's faces if they discovered that I enjoyed reading things besides my mangas!

I touched the freshly carved letters in the stone.  They were cut deep, and they were still bold and could be read.  I sighed.  It was time to say good-byes.  I carefully read the stone.

"Heero Yuy... AC. 180- 197.  For a true hero such as this, there is a place for a warrior once the bloody battle ends."  I smiled.  In God's kingdom, I remembered hearing from my childhood, there is a place for all.  Even for the likes of us, the Gundam pilots.  Now that's a place I'd like to see.

"Duo!"

I glanced around, seeing Wufei standing by the church doors, not exactly looking happy or pleased with me, or this place.  "I'm here.  Just checking out the grave."

"Hurry up.  Night is falling, and none of us wish to stay here any longer."

I nodded.  "It's alright, Wu-man, I won't let the ghosts and scary things get you."  I stood up as I heard Wufei say something about injustice and Nataku, then turned back to the grave.  "I'll be back, Heero.  You and I still have a few battles to fight, and I'll be there soon enough.  Save me a seat at the table."  I took a step backwards.  "You and I will always be together."

With one final glance to Heero's silent grave, I turned and walked back to the church, where my friends were waiting for me.

~tbc


	2. Chapter Two

**Part Two:**

"Maxwell?"  Wufei was knocking on the door to my bedroom.  "Are you in there?"  I wasn't going to even bother answering that.  I hadn't left my room ever since the funeral.  Where did he think I was going to go, anyway?

I rolled over and buried my head into the feather pillow, which was still soggy from my last cry-fest.  Wufei kept on knocking, then progressed to banging.  It sounded like he was trying to break my door down.  I hit my fist against my wooden bed side table, making the porcelain lamp shake and my golden cross with the platinum chain, which I had put there so I didn't strangle myself while I lay there, fell off.  I groaned and picked it up off of the floor.

Heero had once told me that it was a scientific fact that four days without sleep would make a person go crazy-loony-bonkers-out-of-their-mind.  I had believed him, since I hadn't been sure if he was just telling me this to make me let him get some sleep every four days, or if he had been telling the truth.  I had gone a good week without sleep, and I was now pretty sure he had just been trying to make me shut up and leave him alone.  I didn't feel any more crazy than I had been before.  Granted, though, I had been pretty insane in the past.  Lack of sleep had always done odd things to my mind, and now was no exception.

"Duo!!!"  Quatre now.  He didn't sound happy with me.  And when you got Quatre pissed, you know you've gotten results.  Whether they were good results or bad, you may never be able to tell.  But they were results nonetheless.  I sat up and made sure I was reasonably presentable, dressed at least, and opened the door.  Just in time, by the looks of it, because Quatre was practically fuming.  I wasn't sure if he was fuming at me or the big dent Wufei had made in the door, but decided not to chance it.  Trowa was leaning against the wall, looking as though he was having the time of his life.  I probably would have too, if I hadn't been on the receiving end of Quatre's rage.  Wufei was looking at me with grim certainty, and with a look of pity.  I most likely looked like crap.  I knew my hair was all knotted up and falling out of its confining braid, but I really didn't care, even though it was falling into my eyes a lot.  

"I'm out, Quatre.  Something you wanted to say?" I asked, my voice sounding rough and hollow even to my ears.  I saw Wufei cringe.  Quatre stopped in his tracks and swallowed.  There was a long pause.  When he spoke again, Quatre's voice was much calmer and much more restrained, more like the Quatre we all knew and Trowa loved.

"Please don't hole yourself into your room.  It isn't good to dwell on memories of the past.  Come out during mealtimes, at least, even if it is just to talk and eat with us," he pleaded.  I thought about this.  They had been keeping me fed by leaving plates of food outside the door.  I would eat enough to curb my hunger, then go back into my room.  Just enough for me to keep alive.  It was almost amusing, as they had been giving me some of my favorite foods, hoping I would eat it all up with my usual appetite.  Like the bottomless pit they had always thought I was.  Even pizza and chocolate cake every night gets old, and I was sure they were dying to eat something different.             

They had been giving up a lot lately for my sake.  Wufei had even refused a few missions, or at least delayed them, for my benefit.  If I had been in my normal mood, I would have felt honored beyond belief.

As it was, I felt guilty.  Others were suffering at the same time I was, and that just wasn't fair to either of us.  I wanted to suffer alone.

"Please, Duo?  Mealtimes, at least?" Quatre was almost begging now.  They really were worried about me.  I had known that they would be, they were my friends.  So why did I feel so surprised about it?

I nodded.  No reason for them to suffer.  I would end that soon enough.  "Meals, then."  I checked my clock inside the room.  I had broken the glass face of the clock with my fist just the day before, and glass shards lay on the floor and were imbedded in my hand, but the clock still worked.  It was almost late evening.  Suppertime, then.  No wonder they had chosen to confront me now.

Wufei frowned at me, staring at my blood and scratched-up hand.  "What did you do to your hand, Maxwell?"

"Cut it."

"Well, that was obvious enough."  Wufei squinted into my dark room.  "What have you been doing in there?"

I shrugged.  "Nothing."  I tried to smile, but couldn't.  The ends of my mouth dragged downwards in a frown.  That scared me.  I had always been able to pull a smile, even in the grimmest of situations.  And this was about as grim as they come. 

After Quatre had cleaned and bandaged up my hand, we sat down to eat.  Once again, they had served my favorites.  Pepperoni pizza and triple chocolate cake, along with glasses of soda.  I ate as little as I could, with both Quatre and Wufei hounding me to eat more.  Trowa finally intervened and told them to leave me alone.  I was grateful for that.

The rest of the day passed normally enough, not that there was much day left, except that the place felt awfully lonely without Heero.  No one was pulling on my braid to make me shut up, no one threatening to kill me, none of the tapping of laptop keys that drove me insane.  It's always the little things in life that you come to miss.  

A few more days passed like this.  Trowa and Quatre ended up locking my room shut, so they could keep an eye on me.  I tried to break down the door, but that didn't work well.  If it had been Heero, it would have been down the first hit.  But Heero was all muscle, I have more of that annoying wiry strength that really isn't good for much.  I slept on the couch after that, with a pillow and a blanket.  It wasn't all that comfortable, but it could have been worse.  And I began to suspect that the others were slipping sleeping pills into my food, so that I wouldn't stay awake all night.  I would have slept anyway; I couldn't go all that long without sleeping.

I practically begged Wufei to unlock the room for me, so I could at least get my cross from out of there.  He refused, looking really guilty, and that same night, when I fell asleep on the couch, I think he went into my room and got out the stupid little golden cross for me, because when I woke up it was in my hand.  I don't know why it did, but the little thing really helped me feel more like myself.  I know it's just a symbol, but maybe some symbols really do bring about miracles.  You never know, after all.

Wufei wouldn't let me go to the cemetery either, to see Heero's grave, but I managed to avoid that rule, at least.  When I found out why Wufei didn't want me to go, I felt like crying.  Someone had broken the marble grave marker into two pieces of solid rock, and both pieces were covered with spray paint, and obscene words, and they smelled like someone had taken a piss on them.  It really broke my heart to see that.  I went home immediately after, and thought about it, long and hard.

By the time dawn broke the next morning, I figured out what I was going to do.  I smiled to myself, my first real smile in a while, and calmly walked into the kitchen.  Trowa and Quatre were already in there, as usual, so they could start breakfast before the rest of us got up.  Quatre saw me and smiled apologetically my way.

"Duo, did we wake you?  I'm sorry, I didn't realize we were making so much noise," he said quietly, in his I-really-didn't-mean-to voice.  I grinned at him.  He seemed a bit surprised when I did that.

"No, Q, I couldn't sleep.  Hey, why don't you let me make breakfast today?  You and Trowa go back to bed or something," I said, still grinning.  Trowa looked up at me, his face barely registering surprise.  It's not that I can't cook, I just don't like to.  I've made plenty of great meals, and they both know it.  Hey, I had once done an emergency catering for one of Relena's social events, and no one had died, or even suffered of food poisoning.  In fact, I had gotten more than one compliment.  Trowa and Quatre exchanged glances, but agreed.

I grabbed Quatre's arm as he turned to leave.  He stared at my pale hand, then at me, and Trowa looked really confused.  I smiled at them.  "Guys, I want to thank you for everything you've done over the past few days.  You guys are like brothers to me or something."

Quatre was startled.  "Yes, Duo, you are like one to us as well.  You should know that. Is there  something wrong?"

"No.  Where do we keep the really big, sharp, pointy knives?" I asked nonchalantly, waving my hand around the kitchen.

"In the cabinet, with the double boiler and the cutting board.  What exactly are you planning to make, Duo?" Quatre asked.  I smiled at him, trying to think of a good thing to say.  Trowa came to my rescue, whether he knew it or not.

"A mess?" Trowa supplied.  I raised a single eyebrow at him, and he gave me a slight smile, then a wink.  I nodded back at him.

"Something like that."  They were glad I was out of the dumps, obviously.  They hadn't been joking around like that with anyone, much less me, for days.  I almost felt bad for what I was planning to do.  "But don't worry, I'll take care of everything."  They nodded at me, then left.  I sighed, blowing up into my bangs.  This was it.  I took out one of the knives I had earlier asked Quatre about, a steel one with a black handle.  The blade was shiny, and polished.  It wouldn't be for long.

I put the point to my wrist and slid it upwards, along the vein, and watched with morbid fascination as my blood peeked through, staining my pale skin.  I smiled.  I heard voices in the other room, Quatre's, Trowa's, and Wufei's.  Wufei said something to the others, and Quatre laughed.  I sat calmly on the floor, watching my blood fall to the tiles.  I was losing a lot of blood, but not nearly enough.  I put the tip of the knife to my other wrist, and did the same.  Blood fell from there, too, and all of a sudden I felt really weak and woozy, even a bit nauseous.  I heard footsteps coming towards the kitchen.  Wufei's, I guessed, I couldn't hear very well with all the blood rushing from my body and onto the floor.  I blinked once, as the door opened and Wufei stepped in, and when I opened my eyes there was nothing but black.  But I could still hear Wufei's surprised gasp, and the shouting...  And then everything was gone.

~tbc


	3. Chapter Three

I just realized that I forgot to stick a disclaimer on these babies.  Gar.  So, consequently, I'm going to stick one up here now and it'll apply to everything that came before and everything that will come after.  So here goes: I don't own the GW boys or other characters, and I'm glad.  Have you ever thought about how much it would cost to FEED them?!?  Sure, I could borrow money from Quatre, but...

**Part Three: **

I woke up in a hospital room.  The first thing I did was curse and cry out, and when the nurse felt that it was safe to approach me, she gently touched my arm. She was probably afraid I was going to rip off her head or something.  That would have been really hard though, since both of my arms were handcuffed to the bed.  To my disgust, I was wearing one of those annoying hospital gowns with the tied backs, and the knots were digging into my skin.

"Why am I here?  I was supposed to die," I complained, my voice scratched and hoarse.  It sounded like crap.  I looked at my arms, where I had cut them.  Two long scabs were there, and it looked like they were going to scar pretty badly.  The nurse looked at me piteously.

"Your friends brought you in.  They are waiting out in the lobby, should I bring them in?"

"I don't have any friends," I muttered.  "If they were really my friends they would have let me die, not have brought me here."  The nurse pulled away from me.  She was really scared now.  I grinned widely at her, the grin that made me look like a total maniac.

"Sir?" she asked cautiously.  I sat straight, my mind beginning to blur.

"Did they tell you who I was?  I was a soldier," I hissed to her, grinning even wider.  I pulled on my arm. "I was a Gundam pilot.  02.  Did they tell you that before they sent you up here?"

My arm was free now, and I grabbed the nurse's wrist.  "They did, didn't they?  And they told you that I was a bloodthirsty freak, because I piloted a Gundam.  Maybe they were right.  You hate me, don't you?  Just like you hated Heero.  You hate us all."

"Sir, my arm... Please, you're hurting me!"  She tried to pull away, and I blinked, realizing what I had just done, what I had just said.  I felt a wave of self-loathing wash over me.  I let her go, and fell back onto the bed.

"Shit...  I'm sorry, really," I said, blinking back tears.  "I just miss Heero..."

The nurse pursed her lips, massaging her wrist.  "Was Heero your friend?"

"He was the best friend in this whole crazy universe.  And now he's gone, and I don't know what to do."  I couldn't hold back my tears anymore, they ran down my cheeks in swift rivers.  The nurse hesitated, then wiped away the wet tears for me.  She smiled softly.

"I had a younger brother who died in the war, and a friend," she told me softly.  "Sometimes we who were not on the battle field forget that the soldiers have feelings too, and that they too have lost their loved ones."

I blinked up at her.  Was it possible that there was someone who didn't hate us, the Gundams, for what we did?  For what we were supposed to represent?  This pretty little nurse, a blonde with deep gray eyes and pale hands, understood?  This girl who had lost her friends, she didn't hate us for what we had done, even if we were the ones who had destroyed her relatives?  She was a novelty. 

She smiled at me, then walked away. It was a warm feeling inside, to know we were understood.  It almost made me feel normal.  Almost.  The door opened, and the guys walked in. 

Wufei was the first to speak.  "Maxwell, you baka."

"I know.  I stared at the arm I had pulled loose, so that I could avoid my friend's eyes.  They were hurt that I had tried to do this.  They were hurt that I had even thought about it.  I could hear it in Wufei's voice, see it in the way Quatre was standing, the way Trowa wouldn't stop looking around the room, avoiding my eyes as I was avoiding theirs.  "I... just wanted to be with Heero again..." my voice trailed off as I choked back tears.  I refused to cry in front of them.  

Wufei grabbed my chin and forced me to look up at them.  I bit my lip and looked him square in the eye.  His eyes were teary too....

He sighed.  "Maxwell, Yuy was our friend as well, remember."  I shifted my gaze away, and Wufei frowned, understanding what I was leaving unsaid.  "And killing yourself is no way to rediscover each other."

"They never found his body."

"Huh?" I stared at Trowa.  "What did you say?"

Trowa looked up, meeting my eyes.  He looked a bit guilty.  "They never found his body."

This was news.  "What are you talking about?" I asked. 

Trowa swallowed.  "That last mission.  We were all there.  Wing Zero plummeted towards Earth, just as the battle ceased.  Remember?"

I nodded slowly.  "Of course I remember.  It's hard to forget something like that."  I reached up to my neck and groped for my cross.  "I could have saved him."

"I doubt it," Wufei told me.  "I don't think any of us could have saved Yuy."

"They found the remains of Zero, but not Heero.  The cockpit was burned and had shattered on impact, but Heero was nowhere to be found.  He could still be alive."

"So what did they bury in the cemetery?" I asked.  This wasn't right, I should have heard it before.  A long time before.  Why the Hell hadn't Trowa told me?

"An empty casket."  Wufei stared at his feet.  "I thought the three of us agreed not to inform him, Barton."

So they had all known.  I didn't know which hurt more, that my friends had kept me in the dark because they thought they would be helping me, or the ugly feeling of hatred that was growing deep inside of me.

"Which is worse?  That one should die for what may not be true, or live for a frail hope?" Trowa asked. Quatre's face was pale, and Trowa hugged the blonde tightly.  Wufei frowned, glancing at me again.  I fell back onto the bed.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"We didn't want to get your hopes up, my friend.  That was our first mistake," Quatre replied, fastening himself to Trowa's neck.  "We are sorry."  I swallowed hard.  

"Heero isn't dead."

Wufei shook his head.  "We didn't say that."

"No, you said they didn't find his body.  He's the Perfect Soldier, he can't be dead."  I started ranting excitedly.  "Heero isn't dead."

"This is why we didn't want to tell him, Barton."

"I know."  Trowa and Quatre shared a glance, then walked solemnly out of the room.  Wufei turned to me.

"Duo, we're going to take you home.  But I want you to promise me that you won't try something stupid like trying to kill yourself again, or go searching for a lost cause."

"You just used my first name."

"I know.  Friend's do that.  Promise me?"  Wufei was grim, his eyes cold.  But I could see that he really did want me to agree.

"I promise."

~tbc


	4. Chapter Four

**Part Four:**

They took me home, like Wufei had promised.  And I kept my end of the bargain. I didn't try to kill myself.  But the three of them wouldn't let me in the kitchen.  Go figure.  Quatre got us all enrolled in a high school, a really preppy boarding school with dorms and a mess hall.  It was pretty cozy, and probably took a bundle of loot to get us in.  Quatre and Trowa got roomed together, obviously, and Wufei paid the extra money for a private room.  I had a joined room, but no one was actually crazy enough to want to sleep in the same room as me for more than a week, so I had the room more or less to myself.

The best part was that it was far away from Heero's grave.  Not that it was really his grave, there wasn't a body or anything there.  Being away from the fake grave kind of reminded me that he was out there somewhere, and that I'd be with him again someday.  And though I had promised Wufei I wouldn't go on a wild goose chase, I could still think about it.  If Heero didn't want to be found, I wouldn't have a chance.  And it was obvious he didn't want to be caught, or else he would have tried to come back on his own, right?

Right.  But there was still this lingering thought in the back of my mind.  What if it wasn't that he didn't want to come home, but that he couldn't?  Or that he had gone home, but we had already left for this stupid school?  I couldn't help but wonder about that.  I had tried to talk to Wufei about it, but he had only looked at me funny and gone back to doing his homework.

Quatre and Trowa were too involved in their increasingly obvious romance to really notice that I was still lingering on the past, so I didn't even try to bring it up with them.  Besides, they still felt guilty about not telling me sooner and had a hard time meeting my eye.  

My dorm room was pretty cool, for a school.  It was fairly big, with two single beds, two matching dressers, a walk-in closet, and a private bathroom.  The carpet was dark green, and the walls were a kind of tan color.  There was a balcony, too, with kinky green lawn chairs on it.  It all matched, which I wasn't too thrilled about, but it had a kind of cozy, dreamy quality that made it easy to sleep at night, with a few exceptions.  

We had been at the school for about three months when I had the first nightmare.

It started out okay.  It was me, in a field, scythe in hand, searching for something I had lost on the ground.  I wasn't sure what I was looking for, which only made it harder.  Suddenly, in that magical way dreams have of messing with your mind, I was in the graveyard, by Heero's empty grave.  But in my dream, I just knew it wasn't empty anymore.  I picked up a shovel, which just happened to be lying on the ground, and started to dig.

Backbreaking, hard, sweaty labor.  My dream-self was hurting, I could feel that, and the partially healed twin scars on my wrists had opened up, and were bleeding again.  But I still kept digging, until I hit something hard.  The coffin.  I had to pry open the lid with my fingers, and they started to bleed before I was even half of the way through.  And I still kept going.

When the lid was finally off, I stuck a bleeding finger into my mouth, and peered into the casket.  There was a body in there, flesh still sticking to the bones, features barely visible.  Heero's body.  But there was something different.  My cross, the silver one I wore as a good-luck charm, was hanging around his neck.  I touched the cross with trembling fingers, feeling the cool smoothness of the metal and the dirt that had worked its way into the grooves of the cross.  

Then the corpse moved, like it was sighing in its sleep.  I recoiled, pulling my hand away, but Heero grabbed it, holding it in his death grip, which held me still, frozen to the spot.  The eyes opened, and they were Heero's eyes, the deep pools of Prussian blue that were just as cold as they were in life.  But the corpse looked at me, and at my captive wrist, and began to cry.  

"Even in life I am dead," he rasped between sobs, "and in death I live."  He continued crying, wet tears falling down his decaying cheeks.  The blood from my arms and from my fingers fell onto his body, and he stared at the little puddles of human juice.  "Even in death I live," he said again, softer this time, and without the tears. Heero sat up, still holding my wrist tightly, and then he screamed.  

I woke up with a gasp, his scream echoing in my ears.  I shut my eyes and breathed deeply.  I was back in my dorm, it had only been a dream.  But then I made the mistake of looking down at my arms.  They were bleeding, and so were my fingers.  I cursed and ran into the bathroom, washing the blood away and trying to bandage them by myself.  That dream was still vivid in my mind, and I couldn't help but think that there was a message I was supposed to get from it.  Needless to say, I didn't get much more sleep that night.           

School the next day went by slower than usual. It was the same old stuff as always.  Boring teachers, even more boring lectures, and yet another lab in science where the teacher wouldn't let me have a Bunsen burner.  Chemistry is only interesting when it's hands on. When you have to sit back and watch everyone else playing with potentially lethal substances, it just sucks.  You'd think that after a month or two they'd start to let me participate again, but no, the teacher was being a jerk. I mean, jeez, his eyebrows had grown back okay.

Chem was my last class of the day, but probably the worst.  I think I had gotten one passing grade in that class, a C, and that had only been because I remembered to put my name on the test paper.  They give you points for the stupidest stuff sometimes!  Anyway, while I was watching my classmates (the guys all happened to be in my chemistry class, no such luck for math or history, other classes I wasn't doing so well in) play with fire and acids that could burn your hand off with one wrong move, I started thinking about the dream.  I tend to tilt my chair back on two legs when I think, which really used to annoy Heero, so none of the guys were surprised when they heard my chair fall to the ground and my angry shout.  It was the rest of the class that turned to stare at me. 

I ignored them, and went back to thinking.  What was the dream telling me?  Even in life I am dead, and in death I  live?  What did that mean?  I started to wonder if it was a message from beyond the grave.  No, that was stupid.  It had to be something else.  I stared around the room, at all the people who had turned back to the little blue flames and beakers of sulfuric acid.   I tried to clear my mind and think of the other possibilities, but the thought just kept nagging at the back of my mind.   I couldn't think of any other solutions.

The bell rang, and students dumped their foaming and hazardous equipment into the sink.  All but Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei, who always worked slowly and felt the need to finish what they started.  Wufei was working alone, the solitary dragon.  I used to be his lab partner, but when I attempted to dye his little ponytail blue with the copper nitrate, he had decided it was time to discuss a few things with the teacher.  I had the feeling Wufei was also influencing the teacher's anti-Duo policy, but I wasn't about to accuse him of it.  I wasn't supposed to be suicidal anymore, after all, and I didn't have a death wish at the moment.

But I hung around after chemistry just to wait for them to finish up.  I wanted to talk to Wufei for a second, and there was an hour of free time before dinner.  I had plenty of time, as long as I didn't feel like doing homework.  Not that I ever turned in my homework anyway.  I did do it, on occasion, usually those few times I managed to steal Quatre's notebook, but I couldn't ruin my perfect record by turning in an assignment!  School was only supposed to make us work doing school hours, not after class, and definitely not during my favorite TV shows.

It bothered me a little, that the teachers had stopped caring about my work.  But that was just another thing people got used to, I guess.  Like I had started getting used to the way people look really scared whenever they first found out we were Gundam pilots, or the way we were avoided by the most of the other students.  We had our own little group, and we stayed in it.

When Wufei had finally finished boiling zinc with sulfuric acid to produce copper, Quatre and Trowa had already left for their dorm, probably to do both tonight and tomorrows homework.  Wufei came up to me, glaring.  He had spilled some of the zinc solution on his hand, and it had turned an interesting shade of pink.  Needless to say, he wasn't thrilled.

"What is it with this class and copper?  Every experiment we do involves copper," Wufei grumbled.  I got the feeling that it was the copper in the zinc solution that was making his skin react like that.

"It's because copper is a highly reactive metal, and it isn't all that dangerous.  And because it has a high conductivity level, so that you don't have to spend so long heating it under a Bunsen burner," I told him, standing up and shoving all my stuff into his bag.  I wasn't about to waste energy carrying them myself, and Wufei was too preoccupied with his pink hand to notice.  Sometimes a zinc-copper solution comes in handy, though it probably burns like Hell.

"So you do actually learn something in this class.  Congratulations, Duo," Wufei said, giving me the closest thing he ever does to a smile.  It was kind of a hybrid of a smirk and a scowl. I gave him my best death glare, and he laughed.

"I already knew that, thanks to Deathscythe's numerous mechanic problems."  The twisted smile again.  "Hey, Wu-man, do you believe in ghosts?"

Wufei stopped and stared at me.  "Have you been drinking again?"

"There's nothing here to drink!  Except for that crappy wine the cook has in the bottom cabinet of the pantry," I told him thoughtfully.  "So no.  I'm serious."

"What do you mean by ghosts?  Memories of those who have left us, or actual specters?"

"I'm talking more about ghosts sending us messages through our dreams."

"No."  Wufei shook his head.  "I don't believe in ghosts."  I nodded at him.

"Oh"  I was a bit disappointed about that answer.  "Does this school have a library?"  

"Of course.  Didn't you know that?"

"No.  I didn't think I'd need to use it." I told him with a grin. The memory of Heero's scream came back to me, and I shivered. Wufei gave me a funny look.

"I'll show you.  This way."  Wufei started heading back in the direction we had just came from.  He looked back at me.  "Where are your books?"  I didn't bother answering that, just grinned and walked faster.  He shook his head.  "And what happened to your arms?"

I pretended not to hear.  "So, where is this library you were talking about?"

"By the music room.  Why do you need to know where it is?  Do you have a project you actually intend on turning in?"

"No, just doing some background research on something," I told him truthfully.  I actually intended to find out everything I could about ghosts and interpreting dreams.  Wufei might not believe in ghosts, but I need proof before I do or don't believe in anything.

~tbc


	5. Chapter Five

**Part Five:**

It was dark.

I could see the moon from my dorm window, and the dim beams lit up my room just enough so that I could pull on a pair of jeans and a shirt without banging into things.  It wasn't even midnight yet, but lights had been called about an hour before. 

I pulled open the door and crept out into the hallway.  Everything was quiet.  Good.  There was the low creak of floorboards as I stepped onto the first stair, but the creak came from behind me, not from under me.  I whipped around, my braid hitting against my chest as I did.  Nothing.  I continued down the stairs.

I had spent all of my free hour and dinner in the library, reading from a huge reference book on human psychology.  There was a huge section on dreams, and how matters in a person's life could affect their sleeping patterns and their dreams.  It was actually kind of interesting. The guys had found me in the library after dinner, and practically had to drag me out of there.  Quatre had actually thought to bring me food, a ham sandwich, a bag of chips, and a can of soda, and I had just stashed it in a drawer, for later.

The library was big, and had rows upon rows of books, most of them books I doubted anyone actually read.  The book I had been looking through was covered with dust when I had first found it, and was pretty nasty, both in appearance and scent.

I had left it on the desk, so I could get back to it later.  It was later enough, I thought, as I flicked on the overhead lights.  The library was empty, and the book was still there.  I sat down at the table, and began to read again.

Around four-thirty, I realized that I should be retreating back up to my dorm before wake-up began.  But I wasn't even a quarter of the way through the dreams chapter.  I stood up, and thought about bringing the book back upstairs with me.  No one would ever know, and I could get a lot more research done that way.  So I picked up the book and left the library, turning the lights off and heading back up the stairs.

When I passed Wufei's room, I paused for a minute.  He was usually awake early, to do whatever he did that early in the morning, but I wasn't sure just how early.  Before I ever woke up, I knew.  With any luck, not until five or so.  I could still hear him snoring inside, so I assumed it was safe and went on to my room, shutting the door quietly behind me.  I put the book under the bed and decided to try to get a little sleep.  Just a little.

I had another nightmare, but this one was different.  It was just me, locked in a tiny room, with a box.  I was trying to rip the box apart, to find out what was inside of it, but it was stiff, and I couldn't get a good grip on it.  I finally took out my crucifix off from around my neck and stabbed into it, and was hailed by the sound of cardboard ripping.  And then came the screams of a thousand people all screaming in pain and fury, all at once.  It made my blood run cold with fear, and with dread.

"Nous mouons!"  That was French.  I shouldn't have known that, I had never taken a French lesson in my life, but somehow I knew.  And I knew exactly what was going to be said next.  The translation.  

"We are dying."  And that was Heero's voice, calm and monotone as usual, and that scared me a Hell of a lot more than the screams.  That was the voice of the Heero I had befriended such a long time before.  This was the voice of the Heero I had yelled at, the voice of the Heero I had made fun of.  This was the voice of the Heero I had lost.  Of the Heero who was my best friend.  Of the Heero I had loved.  

I woke up with a start, falling out of my bed.  I landed on my side with a hard thump, and I groaned.  That was going to bruise.  That was going to bruise badly.  It already hurt like Hell.  

I just lay there for a while, trying to remember the last time I had fallen out of bed.  Not since I was really little, I guess, because I couldn't think of such a time.  When I finally got up, the first thing I did was look at the clock hanging on the wall between the two beds.  It was just past five in the morning, the sun hadn't even come up yet.  Wufei would be up though, probably.

I already had on my old pair of black jeans on, so I just pulled on my old gray tank top and my sneakers and walked out the door.  My hair wasn't braided, so I fastened it as I walked.  I'd have to redo it later, I knew.  

Wufei was already out in the hallway when I approached.  He gave me his twisted smile, and he came towards me.  "What are you doing awake?" he asked, eyes glistening.  I got the feeling Wufei was getting tired of always being the solitary dragon; everyone needs company once in awhile.  I just grinned at him.

"Nightmares," I said.  Wufei grunted.  "So, where are you going?"

"Jogging."

You jog?"  I was a bit surprised.  I didn't know Wufei was into that sort of thing.  I did know, however, that he usually spent a few hours in the weight room every weekend, when the student body had two days of free time.  He nodded.  "Mind if I join you?"

He raised an eyebrow.  "If you can keep up."

I snorted.  "It's just jogging, not an all out run.  Besides, I haven't been off campus since we got here.  I need a change of scenery."

"Very well.  Come on."  He led me out the door and out into the street, where I noticed his outfit.  It wasn't his usual white pants-dark top combo, or the navy school uniform we were all forced to wear, but a pair of jeans and a really loose gray sweatshirt.  He looked pretty cool, although all the regalities and formalities and authority that was usually in his expression kind of left with the outfit.  I decided I liked this affect better in the long run.  It had a more relaxed feel to it, like you could actually be friends with this guy.

And it was a long run.  A good six miles, around the town.  I enjoyed it; I hadn't had a work out like that since I started piloting Deathscythe, and I told Wufei so.  He kind of blinked at me, like he couldn't believe I was telling him this, and kept on running.  I was pretty spent by then, and I could tell he was too.  I couldn't let Wufei best me.  I'd never live it down!  So I kept running.

When we were finally done, about an hour later, sweat was pouring down both our faces, and we were pretty tired.  We slowed down as we approached the school, and Wufei was breathing pretty hard.  He exhaled deeply and looked over at me.  

"This is more remunerative with a partner," he said between pants.  "It makes me try arduously than usual."

"Yeah, well.  Whatever.  Me too."  I stopped and bent over, resting my hands on my knees.  "That was almost fun."  Wufei stopped beside me, and we watched the golden rays of the sun as it rose.  It was sometime around late December, but neither of us were cold.  Just hot, and sweaty, and tired.  And we were watching the sky turn from a gloomy nave to a blast of pink and purple, and orange, even a little green.  "Same time tomorrow?"

Wufei raised an eyebrow.  "Can you take it?"

I grinned at him.  "I can take anything.  The question is, can you?"  Wufei laughed, and it was a good sound to hear, really refreshing.  I hadn't heard a laugh like that in awhile, from anyone.  Not even from myself.  It was one of those laughs that you can't fake.  A real, pure, almost pious laugh.  

Wufei stopped laughing and smiled at me.  "It's time to go in, if we don't want to be late for the first meal."

"Why don't you just call it breakfast, like everyone else?" I asked, getting up and opening the solid oak door that sealed off the school from the rest of the world.

Wufei shrugged.  "Maybe because I am not like everyone else."

"Well, you got that part right."  We sprinted up the stairs, to our separate rooms, to shower.  We were pretty gross looking, and my braid had already come undone.  Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.  And then I'm blinded by a thick chestnut cloak of hair and I remember pretty darn quick.  I practically leaped into the hot shower water, grateful that it was so easy to wash off sweat and dirt.

I got out of the shower when the hot water ran out and my skin was starting to prune.  Pruny skin is a nightmare.  The clothes I had been wearing were dirty, so I didn't want to put them back on.  I wrapped a towel around myself instead.  It was one of the towels that I'd stolen from a hotel that I'd raided one night.  Hey, they'd left their doors unlocked.  And one of the maids had left her little cart sitting out in the middle of the hall.  It was like an invitation.  That particular little expedition had kept me supplied with soap and shampoo for quite some time, as well as providing all my towels.  

Human stupidity is a blessing to thieves and prowlers.

I redressed in my school uniform, the navy monstrosity, with the slacks, the white collared-button up shirt, the navy tie, the matching jacket, and the crappy shoes.  When we first came here, I didn't even bother sometimes, and would go down to class wearing my pajamas.  After a few detentions, a near suspension, and a scolding from the guidance counselor, that had stopped.  But I was still pushing boundaries, with my hair, for instance, which wasn't supposed to be at such a long length, and sometimes I'd go to class wearing the slacks, the tie, jacket, even the shoes, but not the shirt.

Most of the teachers had gotten used to this and had stopped caring.  Kind of like my homework.  Anyway, today I actually wore the whole outfit and I went down to breakfast about fifteen minutes late.  Wufei was already there, and I felt a wave of combativeness wash over me, but quickly brushed it aside.  After all, he didn't have a braid approximately three feet long to slow him down, just his little ponytail.

Quatre had his tray loaded up with food, everything from the boxes of cereal to sticky pancakes to cups of hot tea.  I don't know how he manages to eat so much and stay so thin.  If that old saying was true, and you are what you eat, Quatre would be a full-blown supermarket with extra large tea aisle and dairy section.  The boy has an appetite to rival mine.  I grabbed a cup of coffee from the makeshift buffet and joined them.  I wasn't much for eating in the morning.  A cup of coffee would do me just fine.

Trowa had a bowl of cereal, something really sugary by the looks of it, and it got me wondering how he could stay so calm with such a high intake of sugar every morning.  Wufei had toast.  Typical of him.  When I sat down, he was grumbling about injustice and burnt toast.  I didn't quite follow, but I just took a big gulp of coffee.  I only like it black on the first taste.  Then I add more cream and sugar then they usually provide.  Trowa had noticed this and gotten into the habit of stealing little packets of sugar and cream during lunch and dinner, to satisfy my needs.

Quatre greeted me with a smile, then went back to shoveling food in his mouth.  Trowa actually took the time to speak.

"Why are you so late?  Usually you're the first one here," the uni-banged boy said, handing over the confectioneries he had in his pocket.  I ripped open the sugar and cream and dumped them all into my coffee, watching with fascination as the color changed to a light brown.

"Exercise.  Can't get enough, you know."  I grinned at Trowa, taking another swallow of my hot coffee.  There is truly nothing that smells as great as this hot beverage, except maybe pine trees.  I love the smell of pine trees.

Quatre smiled, stopping his food rampage.  "You might have to take up long-distance running.  Relena's here."

I almost dropped my coffee cup. Just almost. I'd never let coffee go to waste like that.  "What?  Relena?!"

"Yes.  She and her fiancé just joined.  I hear the fiancé will be rooming with you, Duo."  Quatre picked up his fork.  "So you'll be seeing Relena more often than ever.  And she is still cold about...." Quatre's voice caught in his throat.  Or Wufei kicked him from underneath the table.  I couldn't be sure.  It didn't matter, because Quatre started cramming pancakes into his mouth at a speed faster than light.

"About Heero.  I know."  Just weeks before Heero 'died', he had forced Relena into agreeing to leave him alone.  He threatened to get a court order and everything.  And Relena agreed, after a lot of persuasion.  I had heard on the radio that she was getting married, to some soldier who got her mind off of Heero.  But for some reason, she still blamed me for the separation.  Like I had anything to do with it.  Heero had just gotten sick of her.  I hadn't even been there, I didn't know what was said, but Relena just couldn't stand it.

"What an odd coincidence, that she is once again coming after us, even after Heero's disappearance," Trowa said thoughtfully.  "One could suppose that she is making sure we aren't hiding him anywhere."

"Yeah right."  I rolled my eyes.  "She just wants to be able to hate me in person."

"Maybe," Wufei agreed.  "Or it truly is such a coincidence."  

The rest of breakfast was uneventful, with no more disturbing news, but I felt a lingering sense of dread.  Was I really so unlucky as to have to room with Relena's fiancé?  Anyone crazy enough to marry Relena was too crazy for my tastes.  What was this guy's name again?  I had heard it before, but it really wasn't one of those memorable names.  

Anyway, after breakfast, there was a fifteen-minute break for all those people who hadn't yet gotten dressed in the navy monstrosity or gathered together their books.  So I went back upstairs and made my bed, for a change.  If I really was rooming with the crazy soldier, I wanted it to look fairly decent.  The guy would only be there for a week or so anyway.  That was the longest anyone had been able to stand rooming with me, with just one exception.

Heero.

~tbc


	6. Chapter Six

**Part Six:**

My first class of the day was an integrated mix of Algebra Two and Pre-Calculus.  Not a great way to start the day, trust me, and both, in my opinion, are pretty worthless subjects.  After all, what was I going to need them for?  Paying taxes?  Cutting my hair?  Shaving Wufei bald and painting his scalp green?  So, typical of me, I just sat in the class trying to decide how crazy a person would have to be to marry Relena.  It required some hard thinking.

This time no one bothered to look my way when my chair fell over.  Except, of course, for that idiotic teacher, Mrs. Glebes.  Teachers in themselves, granted, are mostly half-witted, since they actually went to a school so they could go back to school, but this lady was the definition of idiotic.  Mrs. Glebes was in her mid-fifties, probably, with really oily looking black hair and these brown eyes that almost made me sick.  She either had a lisp or a weird accent, so everything she said was hard to understand.  Or it might have been her huge buckteeth getting in the way.  If it weren't for my being so polite, I might have called her the beaver.  She did, in some odd retrospect, remind me a lot of that semi-aquatic mammal that we all love so much.  Even if she was less than loveable.

Anyway, the second my chair toppled, Mrs. Glebes made her way to my desk and squinted her eyes down at me.  I wasn't looking all that graceful at the time, still dazed from the impact of the fall and hurting a bit in my arse, but seeing her stare down at me wasn't my cup of tea in a normal situation.  This only made it worse.

"Mistaw Maxwell," she drawled in the odd dialect of hers.  "What have yew been dewing now to make yew act like in such an ungentlemanly mannaw?"  

Did I forget to mention that Mrs. Glebes had a thing about girls acting 'lady-like' and guys acting like 'young gentlemen?'  She hated Jenny, a pretty blonde girl who sat three desks in front of me, because she tended to drape her leg over the her desk during class.  I wasn't sure why though, because Jenny had a pair of really great looking legs. 

"Mrs. Glebes, I was just... I... I..."  I was at a loss for words.  If any of the others had been there, I think they would have had a heart attack or something.  Since I'm not very good at coming up with good replies right on the spot, I just pulled a random quote out of my head.  "I had to fall, to lose it all, but in the end it didn't matter, Mrs. G."

Some of the class tittered at that, probably the ones who recognized the quote from literature class.  Mrs. Glebes didn't appreciate it at all, for a couple reasons.  None of which were the ones I was expecting.  I guess she wasn't a literature buff.  "Mistaw Maxwell, how daw yew wefaw to me in such a mannaw!"  It took me a minute to translate that, but it came out to be 'how dare you refer to me in such a manner.'  

"Ma'am, I..."  After what seemed like an eternity, my head finally supplied an answer.  "I would appreciate it if you would explain the..." I scanned the front black board quickly.  "The law of tangent in more depth."

Mrs. Glebes squinted at me, like she was trying to see past my face into my mind.  Then she nodded.  "Vewy well, Mistaw Maxwell.  We will discuss it aftaw classes."

I groaned.  Out of one mess and into another.  Now I had to actually talk to Mrs. Glebes after school!  Talking to any teacher longer than you have to is horrible by itself, but Mrs. Glebes!  

I pulled my chair back into its upright position, grumbling quietly to myself.  When Mrs. Glebes was out of visual range, I put my head down on my desk and shut my eyes, more to block out the world than to spite her.

I woke up to the sound of the bell and that of students gathering together their books.  The sound of about thirty students leaving a room is almost deafening.  Yawning, I gathered mine together too.  I had history next, which would give me plenty of time for another nap.  And it wasn't like history was useful anyway.  Just learning about a bunch of wars that really aren't worth all the trouble of learning about at all.  War is hell, no matter what way you slice it, and that's about all you really need to know about them.

The bell for lunch was ringing before I knew it.  After snoozing through both my history class and my Japanese class, I was more or less feeling human, despite the fact that I still had an appointment with Mrs. Glebes after classes.  Being in a private school has its ups and downs, I guess.  So far I hadn't found any ups, but I was sure they were there somewhere.  If I hadn't learned anything, I should have learned that.  

Forget kindergarten, everything I needed to know I learned in the war.

I went upstairs to my dorm room before lunch, to put away all the textbooks that had really only served as some lousy pillows that morning.  That's unusual for me, I suppose, since I normally avoid that room at all costs.  I guess that I was kind of hoping to see if the crazy soldier fiancé guy was really going to be rooming with me.  My feelings on the issue were half and half; it would be nice if this guy was tolerable and a lot of fun and could put up with me, but I wasn't sure if I wanted another roommate to bail on me.  Trust me, that really does something negative to your self-esteem.

But, as of yet, there were no changes in my cozy little sanctuary.  If he was coming, it wouldn't be for a while yet.  So I went on down to lunch.

The others had saved me a seat at their table, and someone had already gotten me a lunch.  Wufei, probably.  I smiled, remembering a time not long before Heero left, and a little before Mari Maia tried to take control.  The four of us- Wufei was off somewhere doing who knows what- were off in some park for a picnic.  The notion of Heero at a picnic was enough to crack anyone up, granted, but what was really great was the outfit he wore to it.  But that's another story.

Anyway, we were all sitting on a bench somewhere, and Heero and I went off to leave the love bunnies alone.  When we came back, Heero was a bit peeved because there was only enough room on the bench for one person to sit.  So he came up with the easiest solution.

He lifted the iron bench right off it's foundation and deposited Quatre and Trowa on the cement ground.  They didn't even notice, I think; they just continued playing kissy-face with each other.  Looking back on it, I'm kind of sorry I never showed Heero how to play the game.  Even though I wouldn't have been caught dead playing kissy-face with a guy wearing a pair of fishing pants and a tank top.  Stupid me, I'd gone and done his laundry for him.  I seem to recall missing those spandex shorts and wanting to know if I could shrink his jeans so I could get the same results and see a little more of his cute rear end.  I did, and I was extremely happy.  Needless to say, Heero was not.

I snapped out of my reveries when someone grabbed me by my jacket collar.  I was half pulled and half dragged over to the table.  Wufei almost threw me down onto the bench.  Rubbing my neck, I looked up at the Chinese boy, dazed.

"What were you doing?" Wufei hissed, teeth bared.  Quatre watched wide-eyed, but he was still shoveling food into his mouth as he did.  Trowa watched, indifferent, as he sipped from a plastic glass.  What is it with plastic glasses, anyway?  Isn't that kind of hypocritical?  And what idiot first thought that up, anyway?  Shouldn't they be called plastics instead of glasses?  It didn't make sense at all.

"What was I doing?" I asked.  Wufei frowned at me, but there was confusion written in his eyes.  "I don't remember.  I was thinking about the park.  And the fishing pants Heero wore."

Trowa pressed his mouth into a thin line.  "That was fairly amusing," he recalled.

Quatre lay his fork down and swallowed the piles of food he had deposited in his mouth.  "You don't know what you were doing?"  I shrugged.  "You did that without... Duo, you're joking, aren't you?  Please say you are."

"No, should I be?  What did I do?"  I really was confused now.  Especially when I saw the knife clutched in my fist.  I didn't remember picking that up.  And, when I saw the faint glimmer of an anxious tear in Wufei's eye, I knew something strange was going on. 

"You honestly don't know?" Quatre asked again, voice quivering in his concern.  I sighed.

"Obviously not.  And where did this knife come from?"

Trowa gave the other two a little shake of his head, and they shut up before they could tell me anything.  Then the uni-banged pilot continued eating his lunch.  I sighed, knowing that, with Trowa around, I wasn't going to find out anything.  It was almost like he felt like he had to protect me, ever since he'd let slip that Heero wasn't actually six feet under.  But it must have been really hard on him; his hands were shaking and his eye was twitching a little bit.  I had the feeling that he was trying to decide if telling me how I'd worried Wufei so much that he nearly cried or how I ended up with sharp objects was going to hurt me or not.

Quatre cleared his throat.  "Duo, have you seen Miss Relena yet?" he asked, giving Trowa his big 'don't-get-mad-at-me' look.  "Do you know if she's made an appearance yet?"

I shrugged.  "I dunno, but no one's been in my room since this morning."

Wufei smirked.  "You checked?"  I nodded, a bit sheepish.  "I believe that's a change for you, Maxwell."

"Didn't we agree that you were going to call me Duo for now on?"

Wufei shrugged.  "Old habits die hard," he told me, smirk growing into what may have been a small smile.  I grinned back.  "But I'm doing my best to remember.  Eat your lunch."  I shrugged and swallowed a bite of the poison the cafeteria likes to call food.  It really wasn't that bad, for a change.

"Smurf-a-licious!" I cried out happily, already letting the previous five minutes fade into the storeroom of my mind, never to be seen again.

This remark resulted in quite a few stares in my direction.  I waved a brief hello to all my loyal viewers, some of which were giggling and others of which were muttering to their neighbors, probably about how I was going to end up in a snug white coat drawing on the walls with a blue crayon.  After all, I was a former Gundam pilot.  I grinned even wider.  It was only natural that I would be a little bit crazy.  It was the stereotype we, the Gundam pilots, had all been fitted with, after all, wasn't it?

Wufei was frowning.  "Duo, what does that mean?"

"What, smurf-a-licious?"

"Well, yes, that too," Wufei admitted.  "But what does that phrase you said earlier mean?"

"Phrase I said earlier?  Wu-man, you know Japanese better than I do!" I protested, startled.  I was trying to stall while I thought up a good way to explain 'smurf-a-licious,' too.  "Did I say it too quickly or something?"

Trowa and Quatre exchanged another one of those looks.  Quatre interceded.  "You said it in English, Duo."  He thought a moment.  "It sounded like..."  Then he said the words, slowly, as if he was trying hard to remember it.  I looked at him wide-eyed.

"When did I say that?"

"What does it mean, Duo?" Quatre asked.  If I didn't know any better, I would have thought he was scared.  And I couldn't blame him, I never would have said the phrase he had just repeated for me unless I had gone completely insane.  "Please tell us."

I shrugged.  "When did I say it?"

Trowa frowned.  "Just before Wufei instated you over to the table.  What is its definition?"

I had to smile at that.  Trust Trowa to put something simple into big words.  "The closest definition I could give you in Japanese would be something you probably wouldn't want to hear," I warned them.  Quatre tilted his head thoughtfully.

"Tell us, Maxwell!"  Wufei looked angry now.  I couldn't blame him for that, either.  I was stalling, and they all knew it.  But I kind of doubted that they would blame me, after I told them what it meant.

I said it in English first, then repeated myself in the one language we can all understand.  "I can't help the god-damn fucking dead."  The words sounded harsh on my lips, and I swallowed hard, trying to convince myself that Quatre hadn't heard me correctly before.  I think I already knew that Quatre's repetition of my English words were right enough.

The others were silent at first.  Then Quatre cleared his throat.  "That's what it meant?" he asked, shocked.  I nodded.  He gave a strangled cough, then a choked laugh.  "Well, it was very... colorful, I have to say."

"Yeah."

We were silent for a long while.  Quatre wasn't even shoveling his food into that bottomless pit of his.  That by itself was a shocker.  They were taking it much better than I had expected.  Which wasn't saying much.

"Smurf-o-licious is from a television show," I said finally, breaking the silence.  "A show about these little blue people about an inch high with creepy pants called smurfs.  I don't think they age at all," I mused to myself.  Then I continued.  "They have their own little community and they're always getting chased around by cats and evil wizards and stuff.  And they have one girl in the whole place."

Trowa almost smiled.  "Smart little blue people."

I snorted, understanding that Trowa was doing the same thing I was, trying to lighten the gloomy mood that we'd thrown into the wind.  After all, you have to admit, suddenly yelling out that you can't help the deceased is probably a bit shocking, especially if you don't remember saying anything about it.  "Yeah, right.  The next thing you'll say is that-"

Trowa interrupted.  "Sex would be great if women weren't involved."

Wufei shook his head.  "In your case, they aren't."  That made me grin, and Quatre blush.  Trowa didn't reply, but went back to picking at his food.  He looked deep in thought, but I knew it definitely wasn't about dead people.  When he lay down his fork, it was with a slight smile and a resonated sigh.

"Quatre, come with me up to our dorm?" he asked.  "I seem to have lost my appetite.  And," he continued slowly, looking down on the floor around his seat, "I believe I have forgotten my papers for class."

Quatre frowned.  "But they're- oh.  Yes, I'll go with you."  He stood up.  "Good bye, Duo, Wufei.  We will see you during chemistry."

"Bye Q."  I watched them leave.  Then I leaned over to Wufei.  "I think Trowa must have done some good forgetting to need Q's help finding his school papers," I said quietly, with a grin.  "Trowa must have some interesting side activities planned."

Wufei choked on his food and gave the side of my head a little punch.  "Shut up, Maxwell.  Their personal lives are not for you to question."  Then he smirked.  "Why is it you have nicknames for both me and Quatre but not for Trowa?"

I shrugged.  "Because Trowa gets enough nicknames from Q.  Like Snuggle Bunny and Sweet Muffin.  And Trowa-kins and Love Camel."

Wufei strangled what may have been a laugh.  "I don't believe Trowa fits any of those names, Duo."  He paused.  "Love Camel?"

"Well, it makes sense.  Q is Arabian, after all.  You would think he would fondly remember some of the animals that come from his native land."  I grinned.

He rolled his eyes.  Then he hesitated.  "Did you have a nickname for Heero?" he asked slowly, as if saying it slower would help ease my pain.

I bit my lip.  "None that I would ever tell him about."

Wufei snorted.  "That means that you had one or two."

"Or three or four or five."  I grinned.  "And its have, not had.  He's still out there, somewhere, I'm sure of that.  He's just not ready to make an appearance in the world of the living and breathing yet.  I may tell him when he decides he is ready, though, if I'm feeling suicidal.  Not that he was ever ready before, he seemed a bit creeped out by the outside world, and with a blonde princess following him around, who could blame him?"

By this time I could tell that Wufei was zoning me out, and that was just fine with me.  It gave me time to think about stuff before the lunch bell rang again.  Like about that brief interlude in time where it seemed I'd done some pretty strange things.  Ending up with a knife clenched in one fist and talking about dead people, in English, no less, which wasn't even the language I'd grown up with, was probably the least of my worries.  I wouldn't be surprised if I'd jumped on top of a table and started praying to Jack the Ripper.  Or ranting about miracles, Shinigami, and sinking waste deep into a newly filled grave.  I wondered faintly if I'd done stuff like that before, and just not have known about it.  I also wondered if it was some sort of Zero System side effect, but quickly dismissed that notion.  After all, the Zero System was dead, and if it had been some sort of reaction, Quatre would have had it first.  Probably.  Most likely.  Or at least that's what I told myself to reassure my jumping nerves.

I began to wonder if I was just going crazy.  For a brief minute or two, I was positive that that was the answer.  I'd been wondering for a while if that was why I was the way I was.  It wasn't too hard to believe, really, since I've heard a lot of war veterans come out nut cases.  Who was to say I was any different?  There are a lot of crazy people in the world, after all.  There had been times when I had been certain that I was insane, and that I had slid off the cracker a long time ago.  But, the question really was, do crazy people know that they're crazy?  And, if they do know that they're crazy, are they really crazy at all?

Ah, the universal question.  It goes up on the list with did the chicken or the egg come first, is there a holy presence watching over us, and what happens to that other sock that you know you put in the washer with the rest of the laundry.  

I bet no teacher knows the answer to those babies.  Yeah, baby.

Something was tugging a little on the end of my braid, and I snatched it away protectively, then looked down.  Wufei was watching something on the floor with utmost interest, and I suddenly saw why.  I let go of my hair.

It was probably the cutest kitten I had ever seen in my life, black with a little spot of white on the end of its nose.  I tilted my head like Quatre does when he's puzzled or interested in something and saw Wufei give a little smile.

"It's been trying to get to your braid for almost a whole minute now," Wufei told me.  "A very persistent creature."

"I bet."  The kitten tugged on my braid again, and this time it got a good hold.  I winced and reached down, picking it up.  "Don't you know pets aren't supposed to be in the cafeteria?" I asked it.  The silly animal just stared at me and purred, then reached out a paw and batted at my bangs.  Wufei smirked.

"It likes you."

"I guess.  Who do you think it belongs to?"

Wufei shook his head.  "No one, I believe.  It's probably one of the kittens the library cat was carrying."

"What library cat?"

Wufei sighed.  "There's a cat that the librarian lets stay in the library office.  It was expecting kittens last I heard, about a month ago.  This must be one of them.  You could probably keep it, if you wished.  The librarian was complaining about the animals, and she was going to send the kittens to a shelter as soon as they were old enough.  You may be saving its life."

A little heartstring twinged at the mention of an animal shelter.  I'm well aware that a shelter is a nice place for animals, but, ever since I found out what they do to the poor things if they stay too long, I've held places like that in utter contempt.  When Wufei mentioned shelters, I knew that I was going to keep the cat.

"I've never had a cat before," I thought aloud.  Wufei gave me what was almost a smile.  "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"You may want to feed it."

I chuckled.  "You think?  I wonder if it eats like Q does.  If so, I'm going to be feeding it a whole lot."  I set the kitten down on the table and let it nose at my half eaten lunch.  "It better be toilet trained, because I'm not going to be cleaning up after it."

Wufei snorted.  "I don't believe cat's are toilet trained, Duo."

"That's not true.  That guy on that movie did it.  The one with the guy who like the girl who had the weird dad who had the crazy cat with the blue eyes named Jinx or something?"

My Chinese companion raised an eyebrow.  "Meet the Parents?"

"Yeah, that was it.  Good movie.  Old, though.  When did it come out?  Hundred years ago?  Two?  Three and a half?"  Wufei was ignoring me again.  This time it did bother me a little.  "Is this a girl cat or a boy cat?" I asked him.  He stared at me.

"How am I supposed to know?"

"You could check."

"It's your cat."

"So what?  You saw it first."

"I'm not going to check."

"Wufei..."  The bell rang.

"You're going to be late for class," Wufei told me, standing up and depositing his tray in the trash.  The cat was still nosing at my lunch, but I picked it up and tucked it under one arm, dumping my tray into the trash along with Wufei's.  The cat squeaked indignantly, so I shifted so that I was carrying more or less like the people in movies did.  I guess I was doing it right, because the cat started to purr.

"What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Put it in your dorm.  Or take it to class with you.  I'm sure your professor will enjoy it."  With those final words, Wufei began to sprint up the stairwell to his own classroom.

"She'll probably eat it.  With ketchup," I grumbled good-naturedly.  But, as I didn't exactly want my newly acquired cat to run away if some idiot opened the door to my dorm room for my new room mate, I opened up my book bag and put it in there.  I have one of those shoulder back packs, so I could see it fairly easily while I was making the long journey up the hallway and down the stairs  The cat's little black and white nose peeked up out of the not-quite-closed bag, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

My English teacher smiled at me as I walked into the room.  She really wasn't as bad as I made her out to be.  I was even doing fairly well in her class, getting a low C, at least.  She was young and timid, and because this was her first year teaching, I didn't really have the heart to fail her class.  Something in my head told me it would just break her heart to have to fail a student, or to discipline one.  Which was good, because she saw the cat I had stowed in my bag as I took my seat in the back of the room.  Any of my other teachers would have thrown my bag- cat still inside- out of the window.  Or so I believed, at the time.

Class started a mere two seconds after I had seated myself, and, while the teacher was talking, I took the cat out of my bag and set it on my lap.  As long as no one else in the class saw it, everything would be okay.  And it was quite likely that no one would see it, since I was the only one sitting in the back row.  It seemed that the rest of my classmates were trying to avoid the pilot of Deathscythe.  Or just all the Gundam pilots in general.  And that was fine with me.

Class was about half way over when there was a knock on the door.  I looked up from my cat (which I had discovered, more or less by accident, was a girl) to see just what it was that was delaying the lecture.  The teacher crossed over and opened the door a crack, to see who was out there, then nodded her head and turned back to the class.

"I'll be right back," she told everyone in her pretty little voice.  Then she went outside, into the hallway.  I shrugged and went back to petting my cat, who was doing a fairly good job of purring quietly.  Not good enough, I supposed, since one of my classmates turned around and sneered at me.

"Where'd you get the cat, Duo Maxwell?" he asked rapaciously.  His name was Bodie, and he was probably the very definition of jock.  Big shoulders, big muscles, and tiny brain.  

I looked up at him and gave him a grade A crazy Duo grin.  He faltered a bit, but not enough to back off.  "Did you steal it?  I heard you were a thief back where you come from," he continued, ignoring my glare.

I tilted my head a little, trying to get that innocent look Quatre always manages to pull off when he does that.  "Do you even know where I'm from, Bodie?"

Bodie gave me a mean smile.  "Hell, perhaps?"

"Perhaps."  Before I could continue, the door opened again, and the teacher stepped back in, along with a teenage boy about half a foot shorter than I was.  But it wasn't his height that really got to me, or the way the teacher was grinning madly at us, telling us all to welcome this guy as our new classmate.  What really got to me was how he looked.

I inhaled a deep breath.  "Heero...?" I murmured, not quite able to believe that this was happening.  Then his eyes fell on me, and I saw that they weren't Heero's eyes at all.  No, they were gold, not blue, and they showed not even the faintest flicker of recognition when they passed over me.  I looked away and bit my lip, wishing the pain that was throwing itself against my heart would go away.

A tiny indignant squeak in my lap brought me back to my senses.  In my mixture of surprise, shock, and rage, my grip had tightened on the kitten.  She didn't like that at all.  So I relaxed my hands and waited for the teacher to continue her speech.  I know that the kitten appreciated it.

"Lon, would you like to tell everyone a little bit about yourself?"

The boy could have been Heero's twin, but for those eyes.  "I am Lon Yao."

He said nothing but for that, although the rest of the class was waiting for him to say something else.  He crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at us all.  I grinned.  He was like Heero in more ways than one.  Fate had put her cruel hand back in to torture poor me just a little bit more.  But I couldn't let Fate win.  Not yet, anyway.  As long as I avoided this Lon character, I couldn't be pained too much.

The teacher cleared her throat.  "Right.  Lon, why don't you go sit next to Duo Maxwell?"

I cursed mentally.  Never challenge Fate.  She is a goddess more fickle than even Shinigami, and she's more than willing to prove it.  

Lon took the seat next to me, and, as his gaze passed over the cat in my lap, I think I saw the faint beginnings of a smile.  I also saw that his eyes weren't gold at all, but kind of a crazy kaleidoscope of greens, yellows, and grays.   It was pretty cool, all in all.

As the teacher began to drone again, I leaned over and touched Lon's shoulder.  "Hey, what dorm are you staying in?"

The glare he gave me was enough to rival any of Heero's death glares.  I winced, more out of habit than of instinct, and scratched my cat behind her black ears.  The corner of Lon's mouth was threatening to pull up into what was almost a smile.  It was reassuring, in a way.  After all, if you can make someone smile, you know they aren't totally in control of everything.  That's the way I looked at things, anyway.

"This is my cat.  You like her?  You can pet her, if you want."

Lon didn't answer my question, though he did reach out a hand and stroked the kitten's back, but went on to ask one of his own.  "What is her name?"

"I don't know yet.  Maybe you can help me think of one later, okay?  What dorm are you staying in?" I asked again.  I figured he would have to answer me sooner or later.

Lon must have figured that out too, because he didn't even hesitate to answer me this time.  Sure, his sentence was clipped and incomplete, but it was an answer no less.  He was reminding me more and more of Heero as each second passed by.  I didn't like that very much, and I was sincerely hoping that his dorm was on the opposite side of the school from mine.  It would help my aching heart just a little if that was the case.

"213."  I sighed to myself, knowing that, once again, Fate had taken hand.  It really wasn't fair.  It wasn't fair at all, and I guess the way I was composing myself made my opinion on that quite obvious.  Lon looked a bit puzzled at my reaction, and really, who could blame him?

"That's great," I told him with one of my genuinely fake grins.  "You and I are going to be rooming together."

~tbc


	7. Chapter Seven

**Part Seven:**

As it turned out, Fate wanted Lon Yao to be my worst nightmare.  Not only did he look way too much like Heero for my own personal comfort, he acted too much like him too.  Except for one trivial fact: he was engaged to Relena Peacecraft, former Queen of the World.  I bet Relena was thrilled about that, getting married to someone who was almost exactly like the one person she had been pining after for nearly forever.  And it made even more sense that she would come here after the engagement.  She knew exactly how much seeing someone who could pass for Heero himself was going to hurt us.  Me, especially.  And I wasn't quite sure that hurting me was not her only intention.

It wasn't until gym class, yet another class that I shared with Lon, that I figured all that out.  My teacher for gym wasn't nearly as nice as the English teacher, and I had the feeling that he wouldn't take to kindly to my new, adorable, and innocent pet.  So I showed up for the first five minutes, for roll call, with my kitten in my bag, then ditched the class.  He wouldn't notice anyway, I was sure; this teacher tended to doze off and let the rest of us do whatever we pleased for the remainder of the class.

Lon watched me go, but didn't say anything.  I was grateful for that, at least.

When Lon had moved into my dorm, or our dorm, as I guess it was now, he had apparently packed light.  There was a trunk at the end of the bed closest to the window, which I supposed was his, and a laptop set on the end table.  The laptop bothered me a little bit, but I let it slide.  After all, a lot of people own laptops nowadays.  I had even considered getting one myself not to long ago, then decided not to waste my money when I could just "borrow" someone else's.  It wasn't thievery, it was a simple matter of transferring ownership.  Besides, Quatre didn't care all that much, once he discovered where his had gone.  I had returned it, though, after about a week.  With all that stupid beeping and those annoying error messages, I didn't see what the big deal was.

Of course, it might have helped if I had stolen the owners manual along with the computer.

The kitten was very happy to be let out of my bag.  I couldn't blame her, really.  I don't like to be around schoolbooks any longer than I have to, either.  She jumped onto my bed with a sudden spring of fur and muscle and made herself at home, lying down immediately on my pillow.  She peeked up at me with her green cat eyes.  I sat down there too with a sigh.  Reaching over, I stroked her back carefully, and she closed her eyes, purring happily.

"Now, little one," I said softly.  "What am I going to do with you?"

There was no answer from the said party but for the soft rumble of purring.

"Cats need all sorts of things."  I twisted around suddenly, trying to get a good look at the owner of the sudden voice.  Trowa stood there, leaning slightly against the door, arms crossed and eyes closed.  "Litter and food are among the least of them.  I could probably get most of those for you, if you like."

"Hey, Trowa.  Didn't know you were here.  And that would be great, if you could."

"I thought not."  Trowa opened his eyes.  "I have a free period during these hours, and I saw you in here.  You left the door open," he informed me nonchalantly.  I rolled my eyes.  That was obvious enough; it would have had to been open, unless Trowa has some sort of X-ray vision that he hasn't told us about.  "When did a kitten come into your possession?"

"Just before lunch ended, after you and Q left on one of your exertions," I told him.  Trowa didn't bother to react to my off-handed reference to his earlier activities.  "Silly thing was playing with my braid."

"One of the library cat's, I assume."

"Did everyone know about that dumb library cat but me?" I exclaimed, not quite surprised.  This was Trowa, after all, and Trowa was an animal person.  He had to be.  "I guess it is.  How did a cat who spends all her time in the library end up with kittens, anyway?"

Trowa almost smiled at that.  "She is a cat.  It is instinct."

"Whatever."  There was a short paused.  "I met Relena's new friend.  He's in my English class, and gym."  I looked at Trowa suspiciously.  "How is it that you have a free period?  I thought we all had full schedules."

Trowa shrugged.  "My math course is of a higher level than yours.  We are allowed to teach ourselves, if we wish."

"Whatever floats your boat," I said, rubbing the kitten's fuzzy chin.  Her purring got to be louder than ever.  "Hey, does this school allow you to have pets?"  Stupid question, I realized too late, since the library had its own cat.  

Trowa ignored me anyway, so my stupidity didn't matter at all.  "What is the infamous fiancé like?"

I stared at my feet.  "His name is Lon Yao, and... well, he's pretty much exactly like Heero.  Except that he was stupid enough to get hitched with Relena.  And his eyes aren't blue, they're kaleidoscope gold.  And I almost got him to smile."

Trowa smirked.  "Those seem to be more than a few differences."  He was silent for a long moment, but I had the feeling that he was trying to say something important.  So I waited.  "I am sorry that we did not tell you about Heero," he said finally.

"It's not a big deal, Trowa.  You guys were just trying to keep me from hurting.  You failed, of course," I said, rolling up my sleeve and resting my hand on the bandage I had applied not two days before.  "But it all turned out okay.  I have no plans to kill myself just yet, I haven't completely snapped, and life is turning out pretty good.  And," I continued, grinning widely, "my day has been okay so far.  No Relena in sight."

"Yes.  I suppose that is a good thing."  Trowa looked not at me, but at the wall behind me.  I suddenly knew that he had more to say to me than that.

"What is it, Trowa?"

He cleared his throat.  "When you in the cafeteria, you said some very unusual things, Duo."

"During or after my brief spout of insanity?"

"Before, during, and afterwards," he admitted, and I realized that this little speech was something he had been thinking about for quite a long time.  Perhaps since before we even came to this pit of a school.  "I have spoken with Wufei and Quatre, and we have all agreed that you have been acting oddly for awhile now.  I, personally, believe that you should converse with the school's resident psychiatrist."

Well, that stopped me dead in my tracks.  Whatever I had planned to say before erased itself from my tired and dream-ridden mind.  It's one thing to think that you're crazy, but an entirely different thing to have your friends think that you're crazy.  And having Trowa tell me I should see a shrink did not make me a happy camper.

"You think I'm crazy."

"No.  Duo, I think you have a problem you need to work out.  A doctor would only help you along the path to recovery.  I do not think that you are incapable of helping yourself, I just, as a friend, am trying to make it take as little time as possible."  A man of little words, this was probably as long a speech as I had ever heard Trowa give me.  And it still hadn't ended.  "You are not insane, I am sure of that.  Duo, you must believe me when I say that I am only trying to help you the best way I know how."

I stared at him.  My mouth opened and shut like I was a goldfish, but no words were coming out.  I had long ceased petting my kitten, and it stared at me with curiosity in its eyes.  I finally pulled myself together just enough to speak.

"What did I do in the cafeteria that I can't remember?"  Trowa was silent.  "Tell me, god dammit!  Trowa, if you're my friend, I want you to tell me what the hell is going on!"  I stood up and got a good grip on his arm.  "Trowa," I threatened through gritted teeth.  He was a good head taller than me, and a lot stronger, I knew that, and could probably have broken my grip as easily as he could breathe, yet he made no move.

He was silent still.

I blinked a few times and let go of his arm.  I sat heavily on the bed, face in my hands.  "Trowa, please tell me what's happening."  I was close to tears and I honestly didn't care who knew it.  I was suffering from lack of sleep, I had just been told I was crazy, and now my friend wasn't even going to give me any answers.

I swallowed hard, but the lump in my throat wouldn't budge.  "What's wrong with me?" I sobbed quietly into my hands.  I couldn't stop my tears this time.  It was only a few tears, one or two, but I never cried, so it was shocking to me.  I don't think I even cried back home on L2, when everyone I knew and loved had died.  Being a war orphan had hardened me to pain, and it was impossible for me to cry.  In some ways, I may have put more barriers and walls around me than even Heero had.  The strongest walls to breach aren't made of stone and mortar, but of fear and anxiety.  And somehow Trowa and I had managed, in all a matter of minutes, to break down every source of protection I had against my emotions.

Trowa saw my difficulty and crossed over to me.  Sitting just behind me on my bed, he put his hands on my shoulders and pulled me back towards him, so that I was leaning against his chest.  He was comforting to me right then, in my state of need, and something in my brain told me that I was going to be okay.  But I still couldn't stop the few tears that trickled down my cheeks.  He whispered something to me, probably the same thing my brain was trying to tell me, but I couldn't hear him.  Instead I twisted at the waist and threw my arms around his shoulders and let my sobs wrench themselves out of me.  Trowa knew what I needed, I think, even if I didn't, and he removed his hands from my shoulders and repositioned his arms so that they were hugging me slightly around the waist.  I totally lost control then, and the floodgates opened.

I wept like the child I never was allowed to be, the child that war had forbidden to let appear.  I heard the bell ring for the next class, but neither Trowa nor I payed it any attention.  We just sat there, me crying and Trowa encouraging me to do so.  It wasn't good to hold back tears, he told me sometime later, when everything was over with, and it was better to let them all out, even if it was just sometime during the night and you had to cry into your pillow to muffle your sobs.  Good advice, even if it did come from a clown.

Or maybe it meant all the more because it came from a clown.

When I finally ran out of tears, class was already mostly over.  It was only literature, which I really didn't care about anyway, so I decided not to go at all.  Trowa stayed with me, maybe just to make sure I was all right, but maybe, just maybe, because he knew I needed him to stay there for a little while.

"What class are you missing?" I asked him when I finally got my voice under control.

"Music.  Quatre will be wondering where I am, no doubt.  I'll tell him later."

I gave Trowa the best glare I could, teary eyes and all.  He chuckled.  "You better not tell him that I cried.  Or Wufei either.  I'd never live it down."

Trowa nodded.  "No need to worry about that.  I wouldn't say anything."

I eyed him suspiciously.  Then I laughed.  "I believe you."  I looked around for my kitten, then saw that she was lying where I had last seen her, on the pillow, with her eyes closed and her furry little chest rising and falling with the streams of her breath.  I sighed.  

"Trowa, I'm so confused," I told him, brushing my long bangs away from my face.  "Everything should be all right, but it's not.  I mean, the war's over, and I know that Heero's still out there, somewhere, and I still have all you guys.  But I feel like I'm in a room with a lot of people, and I'm blindfolded, but no one else is.  So they can see what's going on, and I can't."  Trowa watched my face closely with concerned eyes.  "Do you have any idea what I mean?"

"I think I do."  Trowa looked away from me.  "Wufei is a better friend to you than I.  Perhaps you should talk this over with him."

"No.  Trowa, Wufei may be the closest thing to a best friend that I have right now, but I don't think he can understand exactly what I'm trying to tell him."  I stared up at the ceiling.  "Man, I sound pretty morbid, huh?  Happy Duo, that's me."  I laughed.  "Bet you never thought you'd see the day when I started talking serious."

"I can't say that I expected to see such a day, no.  But I am glad I was here to witness it."  Trowa was silent for a moment.  "You know that the three of us are always here if you need to talk, Duo, but I still want you to make an appointment with the psychiatrist."  I was about to protest again, but he raised a hand to stop me.  "Not because you are crazy, but because you seem to want to get the help."

I hesitated.  I really didn't want to give in, but I didn't feel like fighting, either.  Especially not after the time I'd just had.  Crying into your friend's shirt was not my idea of a good time, and I kind of doubted that being on the receiving end wasn't Trowa's cup of tea either.  And he had to go around the rest of the day in a soggy uniform.  I somewhat doubted that he would care about that, though, since he holds the uniform in just as much contempt as I do.  I even got him to wear his old clown garb to chem once.  Just once.

It doesn't take much to please me.  Just a few mild catastrophes and one or two disasters, and I'm good to go.  Now that is my idea of fun.

And that was exactly why everyone thought I was one sock short of a pair.

I stood up and stretched a little.  Then I looked back at Trowa.  "Does this school have a shrink?" I asked, a bit sheepish.  "And if so, where's the office?"

"Yes, they have quite a few psychiatrists.  I'll show you to their office tomorrow, if you like."

"Fine."  I guess I should have known.  This place had everything, and I was the only one ignorant of it all.  I had found out quite a bit in the past two days, not the least being that I was crazy.  Libraries, cats, and shrinks, oh my!

The bell for chemistry was going to ring at any minute, so I handed Trowa his books.  "Q is going to be waiting for you in your music class.  I'm not going to go to chem today, alright?  Tell the teacher that I'm not feeling so hot, and tell the assistant that she doesn't have to schedule any labs today.  I swear, she assigns those things just so she can exclude me from them!"

"I believe you may be right."

"You aren't helping."

Trowa shrugged.  "Don't say I did not try."

I grinned.  "I won't.  Have fun in chem, Trowa."  I opened the door as the bell rang, and Trowa walked out, nodding to me as he went.  I sighed and fell back onto my bed, petting the cat.  She was happy, anyway.  That was more than I could say for myself.  A lot more than what I could say for myself.  I'd stopped crying, at least.  That was always a plus.

I guess I fell asleep again, because the next thing that I remember was waking up to my door shutting and someone walking in.  I propped myself up on my elbows, well aware that I was in a rather strange position.  Lon gave me a look, then set his stuff down on a table nearby.  

"Class is over, I take it?"

"Aren't we the smart one."  It wasn't a question, it was an insult.  And it did not take kindly.  I glared at him, then returned to lying on my back, staring up at the ceiling.  He didn't care.  That didn't surprise me much; he was a lot like Heero, after all.  Why should anything I say or do vex him in the least?  It hadn't Heero, in any case.

The ceiling, I quickly discovered, was probably the most boring part of the entire room.  It wasn't long before I grew to dislike it.  I think I may be the first person to hate a ceiling.  Or maybe not, the world had been around for quite a long time, longer than I had been, anyway.

You can tell a lot from a ceiling.  Well, a little, anyway.  Like how old a building is, or what kind of person first owned it, or even a little about the time period it was made in.  Really, you can.  There are almost as many different styles of ceiling patterns as there are houses, which makes sense, as each house has its own style.  It's almost like people with their clothes.

Ceilings are wonderful things.

"So, how was your first day of prep hell?" I asked my incredibly talkative roommate.  He didn't answer, surprise surprise.  So I knew I would have to worm answers out of him.  I hadn't done that for a long time, not since awhile before Heero had disappeared.  I mean, even Wufei and Trowa were talking  more now.  "Did you enjoy it?"

"Hn."

He even sounded like Heero.  Man, this was turning into my own private hell, wasn't it?  I guess Fate had it in for me, considering all those times I'd cheated her.  Shinigami always lands on his feet, in my experience, anyway.  Even when he has a date with Fate.

Only this little get together wasn't going so well.  Poor me.

"How's Relena?"  I couldn't believe I was asking this.  I couldn't stand Relena, and I was pretty sure that if there was anyone in this school who didn't know it right now, they'd know before the week was out.

Lon only shrugged.  "Fine."

"Well, aren't we Mr. Personality today.  What's wrong, woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something?"

Lon shrugged again.  "Something like that."

He wouldn't talk any more, no matter how much I tried to make him.  I sighed.  Lon, I decided, was probably going to be a pain the ass.  It would be best just to pretend that he wasn't there.  Which would be easy enough, if he continued to ignore me and type on that stupid laptop of his.  He was even worse than Heero had been!

I reached down under my bed and pulled out the book containing dream interpretations I had just taken the night before.  Lon looked up at me as I sat back down on my bed, book in my lap.  As the leather cover of the book cracked, due to its age, Lon snorted.

I glared up at him.  "What now?"

Lon smirked.  "Nothing, except that Relena would be shocked to find that you know how to read," he told me.  It wasn't the words he said, but the tone in which he said them in that really got to me.  The hairs on the back of my neck bristled a little in my anger.  It took quite a lot of control to keep me from shoving my new roommate off the balcony- which, I suddenly realized with a mental smirk, was extremely convenient, if I wished to commit homicide.

I nodded instead, fists clenched and mouth pressed into a firm line.  Two could play at this game, I was sure.  "I'd be surprised to see if Ojousan knows how to tie her own shoe laces."

Lon didn't respond.  There was a long pause, and I finally gave up and went back to staring at the book in front of me.  Then, as he fixed his kaleidoscope gaze on me, he spoke again.  "Who is the boy in your picture?"

"What?"  It took a minute for his words to connect within my brain.  The picture he was talking about was a pretty old one, that I'd gotten framed for my birthday one year.  Nothing fancy, just a picture of me and Heero joking around.  Well, I was joking around, anyway.  Heero was just kind of sitting there watching me with this really weird look on his face, like he couldn't believe I was being that stupid.  He was almost smiling, and the picture really flattered him.  I kept it in a drawer now, because I'm not really the type of person who likes to dwell on sad stuff that happened in the past.  Even if the picture did capture a happy moment, I really didn't want to have to be reminded of my lost friend every time I looked at the thing.

"You went through my things?"

He ignored the question.  "Who is he?"

I glared at him from under half closed eyelids.  He had no right, whatsoever, to go through my things like that.  "Just some random guy who happened to look like you.  How should I know his name, it's just a picture.  And, since I keep it in my drawer, it's not like I don't want to think about it or anything."

"Hn."  Lon paused a moment, but the brief silence was the silence of expectation.  I was waiting for him to continue, and he was waiting to think of just the wrong thing to say.  "Tell me who he is?  Or was, I suppose."

"That was Heero.  I'm rather surprised you haven't heard all about him from the Ojousan.  Bitch couldn't leave him alone for a damn second."  My voice was touched with both rage and sarcasm.  It would have made any normal person cringe.  But no, of course not, Lon Yao was just as abnormal and above it all as Heero Yuy had been.

"Was he your catamite?"

I choked on my own breath at that.  "Are you calling me a pederast?!  A lover of boys?"

Lon smirked, and that smirk hit a nerve.  He turned off his computer.  "Perhaps I was mistaken, and you are the catamite."

"Now you're calling me a whore?"

"Perhaps.  It's possible, he could have been a pederast, after all."

I rose from my spot on the bed and crossed over to where he sat, grabbing him by the shirt collar and pushing him up against the wall.  "Look, I don't really care how often or how horribly you insult me, but you leave Heero out of it.  Got it?"

Lon smiled menacingly.  There was a spark in his eyes that I really didn't like.  "I knew I could wipe that stupid grin off your face," he murmured, half to himself.  The he hit me in the gut.  I let him go pretty quick after that, falling to my knees, holding my sides.  Having the air knocked out of you is not a whole lot of fun, trust me.  Lon only smirked, then smoothed his shirt and walked out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him and not once looking back at my pathetic form.  I guess I was a little grateful, for that tiny courtesy.  Not much though, you can be sure.

It was about an hour after I'd recovered from my surprise attack and climbed back onto my bed to read that there was a knock on the door.  I jerked up, startled, letting the book fall to the ground with a thud, and I checked the clock; it wasn't close to dinner hour yet, so Quatre or the others would have no reason to come by.  The knock came again, gruff and impatient, and a bit louder this time.  So I got up.

The one thing I really hated about this school was the doors to the rooms.  There's no peephole or anything, so there's no way to see who's on the other side of the door.  For all we know, it could be some maniac with a machine gun, or some strange kind of hand-held beam cannon.  And, not to sound conceited or anything, but we Gundam pilots had more to worry about than anyone else here.  There were still some renegade OZ sympathizers roaming around, and any one of them could easily find the information they need to make sure we pilots are never able to fight again.  Honestly, everyone knows that Wing Zero was demolished, when it crashed, but no one else but the four of us knew that the Gundams had all been destroyed.  We chose secret places to self-destruct for a reason- if no one knew that the Gundams were kaput, who was going to try to attack?  The four of us- five, if Heero had still been hanging around- could easily just pop up out of thin air and destroy any enemy forces that could possibly be hanging around.  So all we really had to worry about was our personal safety; OZ still wanted to hang our heads on their walls.  Mine, especially.  After all, I was one of the first ones they caught- and the only one they made public about it.  I can just imagine the embarrassment they all went through when I got busted out of there.  But they learned their lesson after that.  No reporting having caught Gundam pilots to the common people until we were executed.

Besides that, I had no qualms about opening the door.  "Who is it?" I called, hoping to get a response loud enough to be heard through the thick door.  It was answered with what sounded like a really low-pitched growl.  But it was a growl I knew.

My feet moved by themselves to the door and my hands touched the lock before I realized what I was doing.  I pulled my hands away as though I had been burned.  If I was wrong, and it was someone else, there was no telling what could happen.  But if I was right...

Before I could change my mind, I yanked open the door, part nervous, part angry, and part ecstatic.  There was a brief moment where nothing happened, there was just me staring at the figure standing out in my hallway and the figure staring at me.  Then the figure came in.  I took a step backwards as the person shut the door with his foot, watching me carefully under curious brows.  I was startled, to say the least, and it was all I could do to keep staring into that steady gaze.  I didn't even see the face, those first few moments, I could only stare at those amazing, observant eyes.

But that didn't matter much.  I had known who it was even before I had asked.

Heero hadn't changed much.

~tbc

Ugh... sorry that this last chapter was pretty bad.  But I had some great ideas for it, and I had even finished writing a really good version of this part when I managed to delete my entire hard drive.  ARGH!!!   Sorry... but, if you've never had that happen to you, it is the most annoying thing in the world.  Anyway, after trying endlessly to recover all my lost data, I finally gave up and rewrote part seven.  So, being as frustrated as I was, this version of part seven didn't turn out as good as I'd originally intended.  I'm still going along the same plot that I had, but I tend to write in short, eccentric spouts late at night and have trouble remembering what I wrote.  So I know that this is nowhere near as good as the original, but I hope it will pass.  Gar…  Oh yeah!  Next part is a lemon, so don't say I didn't warn you!  Don't say it, don't!!!


	8. Chapter Eight

I don't own the GW boys or other characters, and I'm glad.  Have you ever thought about how much it would cost to FEED them?!?  Sure, I could borrow money from Quatre, but...  Anyways, yaoi, angst, and death, because I like to dabble with death.  And I DON'T believe in happy endings.

**********

**Part Eight:**

Heero was exactly the same as I remembered him- same cold blue gaze with just a hint of life in it, same messy brown hair, same tanned skin... It was Heero alright.  His clothes were different, though, which I didn't really care about.  Just a pair of slightly looser jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, which, honestly, I preferred the tank top over.  But I guess it would be too cold for that anyway.  I was hoping the tank top would return when the weather got nicer.  And, if it didn't, I would be sure to take action to make sure it did.

I hate to admit it, but my first thought was how I looked.  Vanity, thy name be Duo.  My mind raced over my outfit, which was still a wrinkled, navy, monstrous mess, and my hair, which was starting to get loose of it's confining braid, and mostly just over if Heero would still like me when I was looking like this.  I knew I had changed quite a bit, even if he hadn't changed anything but his clothes.

I shouldn't have worried.  This was Heero, after all.  My Heero.

And he wasn't doing anything but staring me straight in the eyes, anyway.  I could remember a time not all that long ago when I would have flinched away after only a few seconds of his gaze.  Now I could hold his stare for as long as he wished to inflict it upon me.  Which, I noticed with slight amusement, wasn't long.  Heero looked around my room and focused his glare on the two beds.  Then he growled.  Softly, so that I knew he wasn't really angry or anything.  Just being typical Heero.

"Who's your room mate?"

"An asshole named Lon Yao.  He looks like you.  And he's supposed to marry Relena."  I paused.  "You jerk.  Where were you?"

"It doesn't matter."

I was furious with him by now.  "Yes, it does matter!  It matters to me!  Do you have any idea what you've put us- ME- through?!  I thought you were dead, and then I ended up in the hospital, and then Trowa told me that you weren't really, and they dragged me into this hell hole, and then-"

Heero placed a finger over my mouth.  "You always did talk too much."  He gave me an odd look.  "What were you in the hospital for?"

"I attempted at suicide.  But-"  Heero snorted, and that stopped me right in my tracks. I glared at him. He was smirking.  "What's so funny?" I demanded.

"Out of all of us, you were the one who chose to be suicidal."

I had to admit, I saw the humor in it. Sure, I've tried to self-destruct my fair share of times before, but before Heero's supposed "death", out of all of us, I had been the least suicidal.  Well... except for Quatre and maybe Wufei.  Wufei hadn't tried to blow up Altron before, but then again, he was the one that kept telling people they could go ahead and kill him.  And Quatre had spent most of his early life in depression because he thought he was a test tube child.

"You're changing the subject."

Heero shrugged.  "I suppose I have reasons of my own to do so."

I threw my hands up into the air, annoyed.  "Fine!  It's not like you were anyone special, you were just a guy!  A guy who chose to lead me on with his BS and lies, so now you can leave me alone!"  I was half-hoping that he would pick up on the fact that I was quoting song lyrics.

His only reaction was a raised brow and a single word.  "Duo...?"

I continued.  "You've had your fun, now get out!  I've been hurt too bad for you to be the right one!"  I moved towards the door, to open it so he could leave, I think.  Both my heart and my brain were screaming at me.  I had been so anxious for him to come back, and now I was kicking him out of my room because he wouldn't answer a stupid question?  What in the name of Shinigami was wrong with this picture?

But it really did bother me that he wouldn't answer my question.  I'm not sure why, but just the fact that he wouldn't answer a stupid question like that just really pissed me off.  No reason at all, I guess.  Just the fact that he wouldn't answer one simple request like where he had been all year.

It didn't matter in any case; the second I passed by Heero he locked his arms around my waist and held me still.  I struggled a little bit, mostly for show, because I really did like the feel of his arms around me.  It felt natural to me, like I was meant to be in his arms...

Then, when he threw me onto my bed, I knew that this had to be a dream.  It just had to be.  Heero showing up at my dorm, throwing me onto the bed, leaning over me... his lips covering my own...  If this was a dream, it was a damn good dream.  And I didn't want to wake up from it. It felt too good to be a dream.

Heero lay next to me on my narrow bed, all the while gazing at my face, my eyes, my mouth...  Then he reached out a hand and brushed aside my bangs, leaning over me again, then bending down.  His lips were soft on mine, and that surprised me; I hadn't expected the calloused hands and the soft lips would go together in one neat, tiny package.  I groaned.

He backed away, surprised.  "What?"

The smile on my face reassured him a little, I think, because the startled look in his eyes faded.  "Is this a dream?"

Heero smirked, seemingly knowing exactly what I was thinking.  "Of course not.  Unless we are sharing the dream."

"Mm."  I was silent for a brief second.  "I want to have you inside of me, Heero.  It's been too long of a wait.  Would you do that for me?  Please?"

It was his turn to pause.  He appeared hesitant, then he looked at my eyes.  "Are you sure that's what you want?"

I rolled my eyes.  "No, of course not.  I'm just asking you to see how stupid we both can be.  Duh, Heero."  I sat up and pressed my lips against his, and then passed my tongue over his closed mouth.  He recoiled in surprise, but he quickly realized what I was doing and responded in kind.  It was awhile before we parted again, and, when we did, I rested my cheek against his so that my mouth was by his ear.  He would be able to hear me easy from right there.

"I want you, Heero," I whispered into his ear.  "Don't run away again."  He nodded, and I just couldn't help myself.  I had to do something he wouldn't expect.  So I stuck my tongue out and inserted it inside that warm shell of an ear.  He tensed in his surprise, but every move I made seemed to satisfy- then feed- some strange monster within him.  He pushed me back down into the pillows and blankets of the bed that had been mine for less than a year and closed his eager mouth over my own again.

Well, after a few innocent kisses and nibbles, I was about ready to get into the hard stuff.  I didn't really care if Heero was or not.  I figured he wanted it just as much as I did; he was eager enough.  So I slid my hands up his loose shirt and pulled it off of him, throwing it to the floor.  He looked surprised, but pleased, nonetheless.  Oh yeah, it was obvious.  Heero was wanting this just as much as I was.

It seemed to me that our clothes vanished like magic, though I really doubted that that was the case.  But it didn't matter, anyway.  I had stopped worrying about the stupid school, and about Relena and her stupid fiancé, and even the fact that Trowa thought all my lights weren't on upstairs and that I was about fifty-two cards short of a deck.  It felt really good not to have to worry about anything like that.  All I remember thinking about right then was how good it would feel to finally honestly be with Heero.

I didn't even flinch as he bent towards my lower regions and started to kiss the flesh on the underside of my knees, and my thighs, then up more...  He skipped over the one part of me that really wanted him, though, and started to play around with my navel.  His tongue was darting in and out of that tiny little space, symbolizing, to me, exactly what he planned to do with me.  It was driving me crazy, but it was a nice feeling.

"Heero..."

He looked up at me as I murmured his name.  "What is it, koibito?"  I shivered when he called me that.  His koi.  His love.

I grinned.  "I think I'm going to blow up if you don't get on with this."

Heero smiled at me, just a tiny smile, but it was there.  "You aren't enjoying it?"  If it hadn't for that tiny smile, and the humor and teasing that lay behind his eyes, I would have been afraid I had offended him.  As it was, I just shut my eyes and let my huge grin quiet into a satisfied, coy, little smile.  Heero buried his face in my chest, brushing the little golden cross I was still wearing out of his way, and I could feel the muscles in his face tighten to a smile.  It was easy to tell that he was enjoying this just as much as I was.

But he wasn't done with the teasings.  He seemed to like feeling me writhe and squirm as he taunted every inch of me- except for that one little place that wanted him the most.  Or he was testing my sanity levels.  That thought made me wonder, for a brief second, if he had gone to talk to Trowa before he came over here to me.  The thought vanished almost instantly as he focused his attentions on my hair, which he started unbraiding and combing through with his fingers.  It felt real good, but I had been serious when I had said I was going to explode.  Besides, it aggravated me that he was the one in charge of this situation.  I wanted to be the one performing the teasings and watching him writhe.  I wasn't going to stand for this any longer.

My arms darted out and grabbed him so that they were circling him, my finger nails clawing little grooves into his back.  That didn't seem to bother him, but when my hands clasped together and when I tightened my arms around him, _that_ seemed to perturb him a little.  And when I somehow, in what can only be described as a sudden feat of strength, a miracle, perhaps, flipped him onto his back so that I was no longer the one at mercy, he seemed to be a bit nervous, and a bit pleased.  I had the feeling he had been waiting for me to do something like this.  He knew very well how I hate to be the weak one.  With my hair falling over him like a mahogany curtain, or perhaps an odd blanket, and him straining his muscles beneath me, it was obvious that I had the upper hand right now.

Before he could do anything to transform us back into our previous position, I scooted down, disrupting the sheets and blankets that I had so carefully lain over the bed this morning, and caressed that little place on the under side of his bent knees with my tongue.  His muscles tensed, and he made a little moan, fingers curling slightly, clawing at the bed.  

I grinned.   I had found Heero's first weakness.  I planned on finding all the others he had as well, by careful investigating.  The poor boy, when I was through with him, he would never be the same.  Of course, it was also an odd kind of revenge.  He had, after all, found all sorts of ways to make me buck and moan; I was simply going to find just as many ways to do the same to him.  And it would be a process we would both enjoy, no doubt.

After a few minutes of prodding and searching, I had found enough information to keep me rather contented.  For now, anyway.  I was going to go a step further than Heero had dared to, and I was eager to see how the Perfect Soldier was going to take it.

I gently blew cold air on the tip of his elevated member, and watched, to my satisfaction as Heero gasped low in his throat and shivered.  I smiled, then gently fondled the tip with my tongue, tasting the beads of flavorful moisture that were collecting.

Oh yeah.  This was exactly how I had wanted him to react, me coaxing him slowly, him guiding me along.  Life was going just fine.  Just fine indeed.  And, I thought, moving so that his entire cock was covered by my mouth, maybe I wasn't as loony as Trowa had thought I was.  Were these the actions of a crazy man?  I didn't think so- a person would have to be crazy to pass a moment like this up, not seize it.

Heero came then, with my mouth enveloping his member.  I swallowed as much of the love juice as I could, hoping that he was still stringing together some form of conscious thought.  It had just occurred to me, not five seconds earlier, that we had left the door unlocked, and Lon could walk in to see me acting just as he had suspected earlier.  The pederast with his catamite.  And with his look alike, no less.  It was important that Heero was thinking clearly, if only so that I could get up and lock the door.

But the feeling of Heero's warm body under mine and his strong arms around my back were just so- Wait a second.  Heero's arms around my back?!

Heero repeated my move from earlier, flipping us so that I was the one at mercy, but he didn't require a miracle to move me.  I was light as I ever had been, scrawny and under nourished, while Heero just seemed to gain more muscle poundage everyday.  He smiled at me again, the tiny smile, at my wide-eyed look.

"You didn't think I'd let you take over for very long, did you?" he asked me quietly, his words barely audible, his breath whispering on my sweaty skin.  I shook my head, almost timidly.  If he wanted to be in charge that badly, he could be in charge.  Didn't matter to me, as long as he was there.

And I would take my position as leader again soon enough.  We could have to take turns sharing the leadership thing here, if just to keep us both fully contented.

"Lock the door," I charged him, trying to prop myself up on my elbows to see past him to the clock on the wall.  "We left it unlocked, and it's almost dinner hour.  Q and Trowa and Wu-man will be coming by to get me, and-"

"And they can just deal with it," he told me, shaking his head.  I almost gave in there, his Prussian hued eyes were watching me so nicely...

"Lon- my room mate- and Relena-"

It was the last word, I think, that got him.  "I'll lock the door."  He bent down, kissing my collarbone.  "Stay right as you are."  His fingers trailed down the length of my arms as he moved away, pausing slightly over my twin scars.  I saw a look of utter grief pass over his eyes, but it faded as quickly as it came.  Then he disappeared from my vision, over to the door.  I shut my eyes, already exhausted, and waited.  I could hear his footsteps as he treaded softly over the carpeted floor to the door.  And I waited.  Cold air brushed over my skin as I heard the latch shut and the bolt drawn.  I shivered, and waited for Heero to come back over to me so we could finish our glorious fun.  

I didn't hear him walk back towards me, but I felt his cool fingers on my scars and shivered.  He was stroking them gently with his thumbs, his nails passing over them ever so lightly, and I so very much wanted to look up into his eyes, but I couldn't find the strength to lift my lids.  It seemed as though my little miracles earlier had taken their toll on me already.  And I had been having what seemed to be the longest day of my life, to boot.  Not that I had minded the last few moments of it, surely.  And finding the cat was a stroke of good luck, too.

The cat...

Something in my mind told me I should be concerned about something to do with the cat, but Heero was providing ample distraction.  I couldn't think straight; my scars had been sore before, and now, with Heero's soft touches, I was almost sure that they were going to start bleeding again.  They would never finish scaring if they kept opening up!

Heero kissed my collarbone again, ever so softly, and I continued my struggle to open my eyes, so that I could see him.  He chuckled, and then he moved his hands so that he wasn't touching me anymore.  I think I whimpered, but I'm not quite sure.  That could have just been an overactive, clingy, desperate imagination at work.

"I never meant to hurt you," Heero whispered into my ear.  His breath made tiny whispers on my skin, but, other than that, I had no way of knowing that he was still there.  It scared me a little, but I couldn't snap myself out of this dream like trance I was in.  I couldn't move, I couldn't speak...  I couldn't even twitch my damn toes!  It scared me a hell of a lot.

I'm not sure how long I just lay there, unable to do anything but that, but I know for sure that Heero didn't draw the latch and leave, and he didn't open the balcony doors or anything.  I was straining my hearing, but I couldn't even hear footsteps, or any breathing but my own and a light pitter-patter breathing that was most likely not Heero.  The cat's, maybe.

The next sound, besides that of the breathing, that I heard clearly, was the sound of someone banging on my door, and a worried voice accompanying it.  It reminded me a lot of the sounds Quatre and the others had made, trying to knock down my locked door earlier that year, after the funeral for a man who wasn't dead.  I spent a few moments pondering about the likeliness of deja vü, until I heard someone command another person to get an administrator, or a teacher.  Someone with a key.  It was then that I discovered I could move again.  The first thing I did was look around.  Heero was nowhere in sight, and I was still fully dressed, in the navy monstrosity, no less.  The bulge of my arousal, however, hinted at exactly what my encounter with Heero may have been.  Except that the sheets on the bed were messed up, and the book was on the floor, and the latch on my door was bolted.  And my hair was unbraided.  A bit messy and tangled, but unbraided nonetheless.  And, despite popular belief, I was NOT crazy enough to keep my hair unbraided for any period of time longer to take a shower or something.  It tangled like the dickens, and it hurt to get out the tangles.  I had wised up about that a long time ago, even before I had left L2 as a stowaway, and I always kept it braided.

Had it all been a cruel dream, with a few tricks thrown in to confuse the hell out of me?  Had Lon bolted the door when he left?  Had I thrashed around so much while I slept- something I hardly ever do, to my knowledge- that the book fell to the floor and the bed got messed up?  Had my hair just magically come loose, although the little black tie I restrained it in was nowhere to be found?  God dammit, this was definitely not funny.

And if that was the case, how messed up was I?  I covered my face with my hands.  I had just had a really- REALLY- nice dream with a dead man?  A virtual zombie?  It seemed the only logical explanation; I couldn't have gotten dressed without knowing it, or anything like that.  And there were no telltale stains on the bed, either.  So it must have been just a perverse, whacked out dream from a perverse, whacked out seventeen year-old boy's mind.

The pounding started up again.  And now I could determine the words that the yells were sounding out.  It was Quatre, I was sure of that.  "Duo!!!"

I sighed, trying, unsuccessfully, to calm down every screaming, disappointed nerve in my body.  I had wanted it so much to be real.  I got up to open the door, and Quatre literally fell into the opening, Trowa and Wufei close on his heels.  They looked hilarious, just all piled up on the floor.  It made me giggle.

Wufei looked up at me with a growl, getting to his knees and brushing off his pants- he had redressed in his regular clothes.  They all had, but for me.  "Was that some kind of a joke, Maxwell?  Making us wait out in the hallway, rather concerned, while you sat in here and laughed?"

I shook my head.  "No, not a joke at all, Wu-man.  It's not funny at all."  I paused.  "I guess I fell asleep.  Sorry, you know how heavy a sleeper I am.  Lon was being an ass, and-"

A voice from the hallway made me stop.  "Was I?"

I looked up and rolled my eyes.  That guy just had the worst timing in the world.  I was silent as Lon came in the room, picking up his lap top, and left.  We glared at each other the entire time, neither of us willing to admit that the other was stronger.  The other three, two of which were still on the floor, looking rather pleased with themselves, watched the scene between Lon and I as it unfolded, then examined me carefully as he left.  I can honestly say that I think Wufei was a bit scared of me right then.

Quatre was the first to speak.  "I take it you two don't get along very well."

"You think?"

Trowa got up, then helped Quatre.  "Perhaps."  He gave me a quick once over.  "I never knew your hair was that long."

It was pretty long when it was loose, I knew.  I can sit on my braid, and my hair's even longer when it's not in the confinement.  It was a huge tangle of chestnut rat's nest that went to almost a half foot above my knees.

"Surprise."  I was droning now, but talking about a big tangle of hair that was going to plop me in a bucket full of pain not too long from now wasn't going to whip me into a verbal frenzy.

"What happened to your arms?"

I looked down, not sure what he was talking about.  It took me a moment to realize exactly what it was, in any case.  The navy arms of my jacket were stained with a crimson liquid that looked suspiciously like blood.

I stripped off my jacket and stared at the red stains on the sleeves of my white dress shirt.  I stripped it off quickly, and my cross-glinted in the light of the lamp.  The twin scars along my arms were cut open again, just enough to make it bleed a lot.  

"Holy fucking shit..."  These weren't any ordinary cuts.  These looked like someone had dragged a fingernail up and down my scars until they bled.

My cat made a tiny sound from her place on the bed as I dropped to the ground, sobbing.

~tbc


	9. Chapter Nine

I don't own the GW boys or other characters, and I'm glad.  Have you ever thought about how much it would cost to FEED them?!?  Sure, I could borrow money from Quatre, but...  Anyways, yaoi, angst, and death, because I like to dabble with death.  And I DON'T believe in happy endings.

**********

**Part Nine:**

Wufei helped me rebind my arms.  They needed to be bound, I guess, and I wasn't in much of a condition to do it myself.  After I had fallen to the floor, Wufei had waited a moment, then grabbed me by my shoulders and yanked me up.  Then he muttered something about blood loss and death and took a new roll of bandages out of my dresser drawer.  I asked him later- much later- how he had known that the bandages were in there, but he just shrugged and wouldn't answer me.  That's Wufei for you.

I was still sobbing, the entire time.  Trowa was edging away from me, probably making sure I didn't latch onto him again.  Or maybe not, that may have just been my tortured mind thinking where it wasn't needed.  Again.  Quatre was shocked,  I think.  Of all people, I was probably not the one he expected to be sobbing on the floor over a little blood.  Mostly because I don't, in most cases, cry easy, and Quatre knew that well.  Wufei and Trowa were probably just as shocked as Quatre was, though they didn't show it.  That's what it appeared to be, after all.  I was shedding tears over a bit of blood.

And I was, I suppose.  But I was also crying because the cuts just made it seem more as though my encounter with Heero had been real rather than imaginary.  But if it had been, how could I explain being dressed, and not having have heard him leave the room?

It seemed to me that maybe I really was missing a few buttons, and that Trowa was right after all.  I was definitely going to have to see that shrink tomorrow, like it or no.  And my dear friend the clown was going to make sure I got there.

When I finally stopped crying, Wufei took me by the elbow and led me to the bathroom, gesticulating to Quatre and Trowa that they could leave.  They went rather hastily, but I ignored that.  I was almost positive that I was going to be sick, but there was no way I was going to regurgitate in front of any of my friends.  Or any of my enemies, either.  I was Duo Maxwell, the one and only happy-go-lucky God of Death, and there was no way in this world or the next that I was going to toss my cookies in public.

My stupid stomach rebelled the second the door leading to the hallway shut and latched.  Thankfully, I managed to keep what little control I had, though I do believe Wufei knew what I was doing, as he quickly led me to the toilet and stood back, letting me worship the porcelain god on my own.  He held my hair for me while I did so, which I was extremely grateful for; it had been loose and knotted to begin with, I didn't want to have even more crap to deal with.

My lunch tasted a lot worse the second time around, but it was over quickly, thank the Lord, and, when I was done, Wufei handed me a paper cup full of water and a wash cloth.  I accepted both of them gratefully.  When I stood up, Wufei caught hold of my elbow, steadying me on my feet.  I'm glad he did; I know I couldn't have done it on my own.

"What happened to you?" he hissed in my ear, concerned.  "You're never like this, and a little bit of blood is nothing to cry over.  You are acting like an onna."

I shrugged, rinsing the cloth off in the sink.  "It's not the blood, Wufei.  It was the way it happened to be there.  Even I'm not dumb enough to be scared by a bit of blood!"  I was angry now, and I guess Wufei could see that, because he grabbed my shoulders and gave me a little shake.  I shook right back, making him let me go.  I wasn't your average happy-camper Duo right then, and I think Wufei picked up on it.  He left me in the little bathroom, then went over to my closet and threw some fresh clothes to me.  They landed on the floor unceremoniously with a quiet plopping noise.  I picked them up, trying to pretend I wasn't grateful.  I was in a nasty mood, and I wanted the world to know it.  Then, all of a sudden, I got a really weird idea.

I slammed the bathroom door about as hard as I could, pulling so that the loud bang that resulted resonated through out the entire room, and probably the entire building.  Wufei looked up from the place where he was sitting on my bed and gave me a confused look.  The second time I did it, he was on his feet.  The third he was trying to keep my cat from breaking through the balcony doors so it could run away.  By this time I was feeling a lot better.  On the fourth loud slam, Wufei was looking at me again, a bit angry now, I think.

I slammed the bathroom door for the fifth time, and a long, thin splinter of wood broke off the frame and hit the floor with a soft click. I grabbed the doorknob with my other hand and pulled the door open again. God, it felt good. When in doubt, take it out on an inanimate object. They can't take you to court. 

I think Wufei picked up on how upset I was fairly quickly, probably because it was pretty frigging obvious. Before I could slam the door again, which would probably have knocked it off its hinges, he had one hand against the other side of it, making it immobile. I tried to pull the door open wider to knock him off balance or make him back off, and he grabbed the knob as well.

Well, that had just about ruined all of my fun.  Wufei cursed, then glared at me, telling me with his eyes alone that I had gone a bit too far.  I mean, a few minutes ago I'd been about as close to catatonic as I was probably ever going to get, and now I was beating up the door.  Wufei was all done being sorry for me.

"Maxwell, what are you doing?  Is there something wrong with you, or are you just returning to your idiotic subterfuge?" he bellowed.  I winced, because it hurt my ears.  If I could yell like that, I wouldn't have to slam doors.  He was mildly annoyed, I do believe.

I was silent, which, I think, pissed him off even more.   "Maxwell, answer me,  dammit!"

Biting my lip, I looked at the floor.  "Heero."

"What?"  I had almost stunned Wufei to silence at that.  It's amazing what a single word can do to a person.  "What about Heero?"

"Heero came back."

Wufei gave me a really odd look.  "Repeat yourself, please."

I shot him a reproachful look.  It had been hard enough to choke the words out the first time, and now he wanted me to do it again?  No way.  When he realized I wasn't going to repeat myself, he shot me a perturbed look.  Like it was my fault he didn't care to understand me the first time around.

Neither of us spoke for a long time.  I think that we were both trying to get our heads straight.  After all, I had just had the worst temper tantrum of my life, and Wufei was ready to rip my ears off of my head, if he could only get a hold of me without letting go of the door.  And, if he did let go of the door, I was going to run as fast as my legs could carry me in the opposite direction.  Blood stains a carpet so badly, you know.

Then, to my great surprise, Wufei laughed.

I snapped my face up from the spot on the floor that I had been staring at and shifted the stare to his face.  The fact that Wufei was laughing was shocking enough to me, just because it was Wufei, but it was really the fact that he was laughing now, of all times, was what really got to me.  I started to laugh along.  Wufei was laughing.  Wasn't that a pleasant shock all by itself?  But even that wasn't going to make all my hurt go away.  Sure, it was pretty great, and slamming the door had felt really good, but still...

It was only later that I wondered if Wufei had known what his laughter was doing, what it was going to do.  The second I began to laugh along, the smile in his eyes was real, not composed.  Not made up for my benefit.  Yeah, Wufei was a great guy to have around as a friend, even if it didn't seem like it to start out with.

When our laughter finally died away, Wufei spared a glance towards the clock, then assumed his comfortable, familiar role of Lord of the Universe.  His air of self-righteousness may have died down after the wars, but it had a long way to go before it died out completely, if it ever did.  It was a bit stifling, true, but I kind of hoped it never went away.  Wufei just wouldn't be Wufei without it.

"Get changed.  Barton and Winner are waiting for us," he ordered haughtily, smile still evident in his eyes.  I grinned, picking up my clothes.  It struck me as funny that he could call me by my first name but not Trowa or Quatre.

"I think that Q will be too busy stuffing his face to notice, and I doubt that his Love Camel would say anything at all anyways."

Wufei smirked in amusement- and, I would like to think, agreement- at that.  "So Barton does have a nickname."

"Not that I'd say to his face, Wu-man.  I, at least, know that he's handy with a gun," I told him, shutting the bathroom door behind me.  A small portion of it was missing from my crash bash.  The administrators wouldn't like that much.  Oh well, not a problem.  I would just blame it all on Lon; he'd be able to afford it once he got hitched.  Hey, for all I knew, he may have been rich already!  Not that it mattered anyway; I was rather doubtful that the administrators would even notice it.  As far as I knew, no one went into my dorm when I wasn't there.

The outfit Wufei had thrown me looked like something he had just randomly pulled out of the closet.  For that matter, that's most likely what it was.  It wasn't a bad outfit or anything, it just wasn't something that I would pull out of my closet just to go down to dinner and come back up to do more or less nothing.  Too nice for something so simple.  But it was there, and I was too lazy to go out and pick an outfit out for myself.

The thing consisted of some nice black pants, per usual, and a white muscle shirt.  Okay, that part I was fine with.  But the long-sleeved button-up over-shirt really got to me.  It was about the same shade of black as my pants were, but it was silk.  I love silk, but I somehow always managed to ruin it somehow.  I would probably go down to eat and wind up with some sort of mess all over the front.  I put it on anyway.  My day hadn't been going well anyway, might as well make it into a vicious cycle.  I rested my head against the wall for a minute, smiling to myself.

Actually, when I thought about it, my day had started off well enough.  It wasn't until breakfast that things started to go crazy.  First there had been the news that I was going to have a new room mate, then that Relena was coming to stay, and then there had been that gruesome, horrible Algebra class...

My head jerked up, whacking the back of my skull against the shelf above me.  Dammit!  Math class!  I had totally forgotten to see Mrs. Glebes after classes let out!  I let out a string of curses, well aware that I was in for it now.  The horrible, maniacal Mrs. Glebes held some sort of grudge against the Gundam pilots anyway, but why did I have to add this to the brew?

Anyway, after this horrible realization had revealed itself, I got changed and stepped out of the room to see Wufei look up and start staring at me with an odd expression on his face.  Standing in front of him, I grinned, mostly to hide my nervousness.  What the hell was going on with Wu-man?  And why was he looking at me like that?

"What?  Something wrong?"

"Duo..."  Wufei swallowed, then blinked.  "You look like an onna with your hair down."

I groaned.  "And you're just now noticing that?"

"Yes."  The tone of Wufei's voice told me that he felt a bit foolish for just noticing that now, but that he wasn't about to admit it.  I guess I understood why this startling realization had just come upon him.  After all, until now, I'd been acting like I was out of my mind.  Could I really blame him for thinking about other things at the time?

I went over to the mirror in the bathroom.  The mirror is floor length, more or less, and I could really see what Wufei was talking about now.  I hadn't looked at my hair loose in a long time, and it went almost to my knees now.  I really did look like a girl, with a few tendrils of hair going down in front of my shoulders so that they were in front of me, and the rest behind.  It looked pretty weird, my face and my body with that hair.  My braid had always been my prized possession. Before I had my Deathscythe, I had my hair. It had served me well over the years. Been my constant companion. It hid hairpins that had gotten me out of more jams than I cared to count. It was a familiar, well-loved piece of me. I guess the point is this: I like my hair; I like my hair a lot, when it's tied into the braid anyway, but right then I was wondering if it wouldn't be a better idea to snip a bit off so I didn't look so much like a girl.

I discarded the idea rather quickly.  Just tie it back in a braid, I reasoned, and it'll be just fine.  Problem solved, even if it was going to be a bit painful.  Going back into the bedroom, I picked up a hairbrush from my drawer and threw it onto the bed.

Wufei gave me a strange look as I started dragging the brush through my hair and cursing.  "Are you having problems?"

I gave him a weak grin.  "A few.  I'll be a minute, Wu.  I'll meet you down there, okay?"

Wufei shot me a suspicious look.  "You'll be fine on your own?"

I rolled my eyes at him.  "Wu-man, brushing my hair and walking down the stairs to the cafeteria isn't going to be life threatening.  Might not even be an adventure; now what do you say about that?"  I said with a wide grin and a chuckle.  Wufei smirked.

"I say that you're acting more and more like a lunatic every day you walk on this soil."

"It's a possibility, Wu-man."  I waited until he had left the room before I bolted the door and sat down on the bed, dragging my kitten into my lap and dropping the brush on the floor beside my book where it fell with a thud.

I stroked the cat's back, pressing her closer to my chest and letting her warm breath stream against my skin, which had suddenly turned cold.  She mewed and wriggled, but I only held her tighter.  I had no idea why, but I needed the extra comfort, and I wasn't about to ask Wufei or Trowa for a hug.  Quatre, maybe, if I was desperate, but I was kind of squeamish about even that.

The only person I really wanted a hug from was Heero, but he was nowhere to be found.  So I guessed I'd have to make do with what I had; a kitten that didn't want to be held, three friends who thought I was loony tunes, seven insane teachers who were going to have my head tomorrow, and a room mate who really needed to get a stick out of his ass.

When Fate steps up to bat, she always hits a home run.

~tbc


	10. Chapter Ten

I don't own the GW boys or other characters, and I'm glad.  Have you ever thought about how much it would cost to FEED them?!?  Sure, I could borrow money from Quatre, but...  Anyways, yaoi, angst, and death, because I like to dabble with death.  And I DON'T believe in happy endings.

**********

**Part Ten:**

                That night, around midnight, I snuck out of my room again.  Lon was a surprisingly heavy sleeper, as I quickly found out when I managed to accidentally knock a book off the table and onto the floor.  When Lon continued his slumber, I let out a long sigh of relief.  Although he might have looked and acted like Heero, he sure didn't sleep like him.  I had made an extensive study out of that; while Heero slept, his features had all remained guarded, the Perfect Soldier even in sleep.  But Lon totally relaxed, even letting a tiny smile tweak the corners of his mouth now and then.  And Heero had been an amazingly light sleeper.  The slightest sound could wake that guy up; he was better than any mechanical security system.  I used to be tempted to take him apart and see if the guy wasn't a machine.

                I really don't know why I risked going out of the room.  I didn't have anywhere to go, now that I had managed to transfer the ownership of that dream book from the dusty library shelf to the dusty darkness under my bed.  I guess I just needed to think, and I couldn't do that knowing that Lon could wake up at any moment for a drink of water or an unexpected trip to the bathroom.  And the memory of my encounter with Heero- perhaps fantasy, perhaps not, neither one really made any sense- still lingered in my mind.  I couldn't think about that in the exact same place where it had occurred!  And so I made my way, as quietly as I could, out of my room, through the hallway, and down the stairs, until I reached the courtyard door.

                The courtyard is a really nice place.  It's right smack dab in the middle of the school in that little unroofed area that doesn't have a ceiling, so it's pretty open.  A few benches are scattered strategically around the place, providing us students with some nice places to sit down, and the place is covered with bushes and flowerbeds and trees.  In the fall, the place was a magical looking one and it probably would be again, maybe even more so, in the spring and summer.  If a person placed themselves in just the right position, so that they couldn't see the walls or the doors through the trees, they could almost believe that they were free.  Free of all the troubles that school and everyday life presented.  Free of all the curve balls that Fate likes to throw.  But this was the middle of winter, and pretty much all of the plants were dead, except for the pine trees, and there weren't enough of those to hide the old, depressing brick walls and the heavy metal doors on either end of the courtyard, leading back into the school.  It was impossible to be free of anything like that in the middle of the winter.  Not here.

                And yet here I was, ready to face the bitter cold winter wind in my thin clothes, which I hadn't bothered to remove after dinner, having had the faintest suspicion that I would be taking a midnight walk at one point or another.  I rested my hand on the door handle.  What was wrong with this picture?  I shook my head, shutting my eyes and trying to clear out all the garbage collecting in my brain.  No use.  Sighing, I looked down at my hand where it rested on the door.  It was so pale and thin...  if I thought about it, I could almost see the purple and blue veins underneath the skin and the blood flowing so freely through them.  I blinked.  If I got a pair of scissors, I could probably cut in there and yank out a vein or two and cut it.  It would be such an easy way to make all my problems go away.  So easy...

                I shook my head again.  No.  Why was I thinking like this?  I had promised Wufei that I wouldn't think about suicide or of hurting myself again and I hadn't since I left the hospital.  So why was I thinking about it now, of all times?  I never break promises and I never tell lies.  Was I really so desperate to make everything go away?  Some people who had slid off the bubble thought that.  Just like some of them talked to themselves or to the people who only they could see.  Like some people who just weren't safe to be around in an uncontrolled environment.  I groaned, hitting my head against the door.  I wasn't crazy.  I wasn't.  I just thought I was Shinigami and had perverted dreams about my missing best friend and thought about inflicting bloody, gruesome deaths upon myself.  I wasn't crazy.  A lot of people were like that.  Sure they were.  And, maybe, if I kept telling myself that, it would be true.

                I wrenched open the door, trying to shock the thought out of my head with a blast of cold air and snowflakes.  Shutting my eyes and grinding my teeth together, I went into the courtyard, making my way over to one of the benches and sitting down, the cold metal of the sides and edges pressing against my skin even through my clothes.  The wind whipped through my skin, chilling me through the length and breadth of my skin.  Snow piled up around my feet as I sat, thinking.

                I wasn't crazy.  That wasn't even an option.

                But if that was true, then what was wrong with me?

                I held my head in my hands.  Life was just going down the toilet.  And I thought I had it bad before.  Now that I was questioning my sanity, I wasn't sure if I knew which end was up anymore.  At least during the war and when I was living on the streets I knew that I was at least partially sensible!  I sighed.  Fate was throwing me one of her famous curve balls.  Damn.

                Miserable as I was, I decided quickly that freezing my arms off in this cold tempest wasn't going to make things any better and it sure as hell wasn't helping me think.  I stood up and went back into the hallway, where I leaned against the wall, shivering.  Okay, so I was allowed to have one or two bad ideas every so often.  Going outside to think was definitely one of them.

                I was also torturing myself by reliving that night's dinner experience in my mind, over and over and over again.  Thinking about how it could have been worse, if I had so wished it, but how it could have been better still.  Damn Relena and her endless pursuit to best me!

                Maybe, just maybe, if the day hadn't been so messed up already, I would have been able to watch my tongue around her.  But no, I had to be the same Duo everyone expected me to be, letting my tongue flap around where it wasn't wanted.  And when I had accidentally let slip to Relena that I was going to see the school shrink in the morning, I hadn't missed that far too familiar hungry glint in her eye.  She was planning something, but I had no idea what.  And that wasn't a comforting thought at all.

                I must have dozed off there against the wall, because the next thing I knew it was nearly two o'clock and every bone and muscle in my body ached from being pressed into the wall.  Groaning, I sat up, wincing as my bones snapped and creaked.  This wasn't going to make for good jogging like I had told Wufei I'd be up for.  Wu-man was looking for a good jogging partner, and my tired body was going to be somewhat of a disappointment unless I went back up to my room and took a little nap.

                Yawning widely, I got to my feet, letting the wall do its part in supporting my weight.  And why not; it wasn't doing much else at the time.  I saw absolutely no harm in it.  Why should I?  I sincerely doubted that the wall had anywhere near as many problems as I did.

      I walked into the dorm room to find him sitting out on the balcony, in the cold, wearing only his boxers and a pair of socks, as the snow started to fall.  The door was shut, and bolted from the inside.  Lon was just sitting out there, snow glistening in his hair, calmly as could be.  I swore and opened the door.

                I was wearing my clothes, the whole pants, shirt, and over shirt combo Wufei had handed to me earlier, and I was freezing.  "What the hell do you think you're doing?" I called to him over the raging winds.  "This is suicide!"

                Lon looked at me, and I could see his face, which was leaden and like ash.  He had been out here for a while, then.  "I know."  He made no attempt to move, so I grabbed his arm and literally dragged him inside.  He stared at me like I was crazy, which, I suddenly realized, was quite possible.  I'm such a damn hypocrite.  I set him next to the heater, and wrapped him in about a million blankets.

                "You idiot.  What are you trying to do, get yourself killed?" I asked him, ripping the quilts from off my bed and wrapping them around his muscular body.

                "Yes."  He shivered, and I frowned at him.

                "Why?  Besides the fact that you have to marry Relena, I mean."

                "Isn't that enough?"  He pulled the blankets closer to him and scowled weakly at me.  The effect was kind of ruined by the chattering teeth, but I got the picture.  "That's one reason, I guess.  The other would have to be...." His voice broke off, and I smiled at him.

                "What else?"

                Lon was silent for a minute.  When he began to speak, it was with a slow, soft tone, like he was thinking over everything he said.  "I was a soldier."

                "Okay," I said slowly.  "So was I.  What's so bad about that?"

                "I'm not done.  I don't remember any of it, I was in some sort of mobile suit accident, and I nearly died.  Relena found me, and told me about what had happened.  I don't remember anything before that, either."  He smiled, a bitter smile.  "I didn't even remember my own fucking name.  Relena told me about life before the accident, and how we had been engaged."  He shut his eyes.  "That was a lot to swallow in itself.  But then I started having odd dreams, little flashes of life before, and though I could never really grasp what they were about, I sort of knew.  I know I had a friend before, and something tells me we were more than good friends, but I think he died in the war, like I did."

                "You aren't dead, unless you know something that I don't.  You're still breathing and talking, aren't you?"

                "No thanks to you," he spat at me.  "I can't stand not knowing, Duo.  It's ripping me apart from the inside, and I still need to figure out why I hate Relena so much, even though I apparently proposed to her and everything."  Lon slammed his fist against his thigh.  "I hate her."

                "Trust me, you aren't the only one."  I leaned back on my chair.  "Why did you choose that method of suicide?  Wouldn't it have been a hell of a lot quicker to put a gun to your head?"

                "That's too unpredictable.  You could wake up paralyzed in a hospital, instead of dying.  Besides, Relena took my gun away."  He smiled, a very weak smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.  We were making progress here.  "I considered jumping off the balcony instead."

                "And end up alive?  No way.  There's always the baggy-over-the-head trick."

                "Takes too long."  He stared up at the ceiling.  "How do you know so much about this type of thing?  Don't tell me it was basic training."  I think that, for the first time, I could hear actual emotion in his voice.  Well, emotion besides hatred and annoyance, I mean.  It was actually kind of nice.

                "Nope.  I've tried one or two ways myself."  I showed him the twin scars snaking up my arms, and he recoiled.  Scars do that to people, I've found, especially when they're still shiny and new.  Long sleeve shirts are your friends.  "I tried slicing my veins open a few months back.  Only problem was that Wufei decided he wanted breakfast or something equally disturbing and caught me in the middle of passing out.  He and my other friends got me into a hospital."  I grinned.  "It's pretty efficient, I suppose."  
                "I think it's too unsure and unpredictable," he protested.  "You're living proof of that."  He nodded towards my arms.  "I think cutting is only for people who are practicing for the real thing.  What about drowning?" he asked.  Intrigued at finding someone who was almost as morbid as I was, I continued in the conversation, but this little voice in the back of my head was asking why I was egging on this guy, since he was already suicidal enough without my help.  And how was it possible that the two of us, who, up until this time, hadn't exchanged more than three sentences, were actually holding a fairly sensible conversation?  Life sure is funny sometimes.

                "Takes longer than the bag-over-the-head," I protested.  "I still think a gun to the head is the most efficient way to do it.  It always worked in the war.  Stick a gun against someone's temple and pull the trigger.  Their whole head pretty much explodes.  It's the Hemmingway factor."

                Lon smiled at that.  Really.  He _actually _gave me a real, honest to goodness smile.  "It's not as efficient as you seem to think.  You risk the consequences of hitting nerves, not going straight through the skull, and being only half a person the rest of your life."  He thought about something for a moment.  "My people, the Japanese, have an interesting way of doing it."

                "What's that?"

                "Tie one end of a rope around your neck, and the other end to a large rock.  Put the rock on the seat of a chair, and then sit down with you back braced so that you can't fall backwards but have to keep sitting.  Tip the chair over and the rock falls off, and you'll live maybe three to five more minutes, in a growing dream.  Then gray fades to black, and bang, it's all over."  Lon made hand gestures as he said this, trying to illustrate it in my mind.  It worked.  I shivered as chills wormed their way up my spine.

                "Groovy."  I grinned.  "So why didn't you do that, if you're so insistent on suicide?"

                He shrugged.  "No big rocks."  He met my eyes, and we both started laughing, like two friends sharing a huge secret.  It felt good; I hadn't laughed like that for a long time and I got the feeling Lon hadn't either.  We laughed for ages, until the door blew open and I ran over to latch it shut.  And then we started laughing again.  It's amazing how well you can get to know someone when you're contemplating death.

**********

Not really much to say.  This chapter was too long in coming and I really don't like it all that much.  Basically nothing of importance happens and it's too damn short.  But it's there, so don't complain.  I don't think I could take it, since life has been going to hell lately…  Yippy skippy.  I'm at triumph@white-star.com, you know the deal.  C&C is necessary if this story is going to go anywhere.  Ja ne.       ~*Hawk*~


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